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A voice like flowers and music sweetly blended, 

A fragile form, but beauteous as Apollo's ; 

A soul of light by the Three Graces tended, 

Eyes like young Dian's, when the deer she follows 

Over the emerald lawns and sylvan hollows. 

Such wert thou, Shelley, minstrel heaven-descended." 

KENEALY, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



ASA 



Philosopher and Reformer 



BY 



1/ 

CHARLES SOTHERAN" 



INCLUDING AN ORIGINAL SONNET 



BY 



Charles W. Fi\edei\ickson 



TOGETHER WITH 



A PORTRAIT OF SHELLEY AND A VIEW OF HIS TOMB. 



Let us see the Truth, -whatever that may be." — Shelley^ 1822. 



NEW YORK: 
CHARLES P. SOMERBY, 139 EIGHTH STREET. 

1876. 



k^ 



fc^^ 



o^W 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

ChAELES SOTHEBAI>r, 

in tlie Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 






EDWARD O. JENKINS, 

PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER, 

20 North William Street, N. Y 



w 







TO 

CHARLES WILLIAM FREDERI CKS O N, 

OF NEW YORK. 



Dear Feiend: 

As in ancient times, none were allowed participation in tlie 
Higher Mysteries, without having proved their fitness for the 
reception of esoteric truth, so in these days only those seem to 
be permitted to breathe the hidden essence in Shelley, who have 
realized the acute phases of spiritality. Among the few who have 
enjoyed these bi-fold gifts, none have had more fortuitous experi- 
ence than yourseK, to whom I now take the liberty of dedicating 

this volume. 

Yours fraternally, 

Chaeles Sotheeah. 
Deosmber, 1875. 





sjfeaaBRag^g^aafe^/^ggi^^^iSgg,i^a'£i,f/^TEy-g/g;,t«::s:?r:.^^ 



VIEW OF SHELLEY S TOMB, IN THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY, AT ROME. 
FROM A SKETCH BY A. J. STRUTT. 



" To see ttie sun shining on its bright grass, and hear the whispering of the wind among 
the leaves of the trees, which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soU which is 
stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and young 
children, who, buried there, we might, if we were to die, desire a sleep they seem to 
sleep. "—Shelley. 






PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, 

BY 

CHARLES W. FREDERICKSON. 

Amid the ruins of majestic Rome, 

That told the story of its countless years, 

I stood, and wondered by the silent dust 

Of the "Eternal Child." Oh, Shelley ! 

To me it was not given to know thy face, 

Save through the mirrored pages of thy works ; 

Those whisper'd words of wood and wave, are to mine ears, 

Sweet as the music of ocean's roar, that breaks on sheltered shores. 

Thy sterner words of Justice, Love and Truth, 

"Will to the struggling soul a beacon prove. 

And barrier against the waves of tyranny and craft. 

Then rest, " Cor Cordumt,^^ and though thy life 

Was brief in point of years, its memory will outlive 

The column'd monuments around thy tomb. 



New York, JVoz/. 25, 1875, 
My Dear Sothkran : — 

The copy of the lines on our Beloved Poet, which you requested, are entirely 
at your service — make what use of them you please. 

Yours, sincerely, 

C. W. FREDERICKSON. 



Il 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, AS A PfllLOSOPHEE AND 

REFORMER. 

A PAPER EEAD BEFOEE THE I^^EW YOEK LIBERAL CLUB, 
OTT FRIDAY, AUGUST 6tII, 1875. 

" Let us see the Truth, whatever that may be." — Shelley, 1822. 

Mr. Vice-President and Members of the lAberal Club : 

" The Blood of the Martyr is the Seed of the Church." Per- 
secution ever fails in accomplishing its desired ends, and as a rule 
lays the foundations broad and deep for the triumph of the ob- 
jects of and principles inculcated by the persecuted. 

Driven from their homes by fanatical tyranny, not permitted 
to worship as they thought fit, a band of noble and earnest, yet 
on some points mistaken men, were, a little over two hundred and 
fifty years ago, landed on this continent from the good ship 
"Mayflower." The "Pilgrim Fathers" were, in their native 
land, refused liberty of conscience and freedom of discussion ; 
their apparent loss was our gain, for if it had not been for that 
despotism, and the corresponding re-action, which made those 
stern old zealots give to others many of the inalienable rights of 
liberty denied to themselves, you and I could not to-night per- 
haps be allowed to meet face to face, without fear, to discuss 
metaphysical and social questions in their broadest aspects, with- 
out the civil or theological powers intervening to close our 
mouths. 

" Fragile in health and frame ; of the purest habits in morals ; 
full of devoted generosity and universal kindness ; glowing 
with ardor .to attain wisdom ; resolved at every personal sacrifice 
to do right ; burning with a desire for affection and sympathy," 
a boy-under-graduate of Oxford, described as of tall, delicate, 
and fragile figure, with large and lively eyes, with expressive, 
beautiful and feminine features, with head covered with long, 
brown hair, of gracefulness and simplicity of manner, the heir to 



2 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

a title and the representation of one of tlie most ancient English 
families, which numbered Sir Philip Sidney on its roll of illus- 
trions names, jnst sixty -fonr years ago, and in this nineteenth 
cenmry, for no licentiousness, violence, or dishonor, but, for his re- 
fusal to criminate himself or inculpate friends, was, without trial, 
expelled by learned divines from his university for writing an 
argumentative thesis, which, if it had been the work of some Greek 
philosopher, would have been hailed by his judges as a fine 
specimen of profound analytical abstruseness--for that expulsion 
are we the debtors to theological charity and tolerance for 
"Queen Mab." 

Excommunicated by a mercenary and abject priesthood, cast off 
by a savage father, the admirer of that gloomy theology founded 
by the murderer of Michael Servetus, and charged by his jeal- 
ous brother writers as one of the founders of a Satanic School, 
for neither immorality of life nor breach of the parental re- 
lation, but for heterodoxy to an expiring system of dogmatism, 
and for acting on and asserting the right of man to think 
and judge for himself, a father was to have two children 
torn from him, in the sacred name of law and justice, by the 
principal adviser of a dying madman, " Defender of the Faith, 
by Law Established," and by us despised as the self-willed 
tyrant, who lost America and poured out human blood like water 
to gratify his lust of power. By that Lord Chancellor whose 
cold, impassive statue has a ]3lace in Westminster Abbey, where 
Byron' s was refused admittance, and whose memory, when that 
stone has crumbled into dust, will live as one who furnished an 
example for execrable tyranny over the parental tie, and that 
Lord El don whom an outraged father curses in imperishable 
verse : 

" By thy most impious hell, and all its terrors ; 
By all the grief, the madness and the guilt 
Of thine impostures, which must be ;t/ieir errors, 
That sand on which thy crumbling power is built ; 



By all the hate which checks a father's love ; 

By all the scorn which kills a father's care ; 
By those most impious hands that dared remove 
Nature's high bounds — by thee, and by despair. 

Yes, the despair which bids a father 'groan, 
And cry, ' my children are no longer mine. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 3 

The blood within those veins may be mine own, 
But, tyrant, their polluted souls' are thine.' 

" I curse thee, though I hate thee not. O slave ! 

If thou could'st quench the earth consuming hell 
Of which thou art a demon, on thy grave 

This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well." 

Sad as it is to contemplate any linman being in his agony mak- 
ing use of sucli language to another ; and however much we may 
sympathize with the poet, yefc we cannot but have inwardly a 
feeling of rejoicing ; for, if ifc had not been for this unheard of 
villainy, we should probably never have had the other magnifi- 
cent poetry and prose of Percy Bysshe Shelley composed dur- 
ing his self-imposed ostracism, and which furnish such glorious 
thoughts for the philosopher, and keen trenchant weapons for 
the reformer. 

Have any of my hearers ever stood, in the calm of a summer 
evening, in Shelley' s native land, listening to the lovely warble 
of the nightingale, making earth joyful with its unpremeditated 
strains, and the woods re-echo with its melody? Or gazed up- 
wards with anxious ken towards the skylark careering in the 
"blue ether," far above this sublunary sphere of gross, sensual 
earth, there straining after immortality, and 

" Like a poet hidden, 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden. 
Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears, it heeded not," 

pouring out such bursts of song as to make one almost worship 
and credit the-fables, taught in childhood at our mothers' knees, of 
the angelic symphonies of heavenly choirs. Such was the poetry 
of Shelley ; and as the music of the nightingale or the skj^lark 
is far exceeding in excellence that of tlie other members of the 
feathered kingdom, so does Shelley rank as a poet far above all 
other poets, making even the poet of nature, the great Words- 
worth himself, confess that Shelley was indeed the master 
of harmonious verse in our modern literature. It is broadly laid 
down in the Marvinian theory that all poets are insane. 
I wo hid much like to break a lance with the learned Professor 
of Psychology and Medical Jurisprudence ; but as the overthrow 
of this dogma does not come within the scope of my essay, I 
would suggest to those who may have been influenced by that 



4 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

paper to read Shelley's ^'Defence of Poetry." I shall quote 
two extracts therefrom, each pertinent to my subject. The first 
describes the function of. the poet : 

" But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible order, are not only 
the authors of language and of music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary, and 
painting ; they are the institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the inventors 
of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity with the beauti- 
ful and the true, that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world, which is 
called religion." 

The other is in extension of the same idea, and concludes the 

essay : 

' ' Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration ; the mirrors of the gigan- 
tic shadows which futurity casts upon the present ; the words which express what they 
understand not ; the trumpets which sing to battle and feel not what they inspire ; the in- 
fluence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the 
world." 

I have no hesitation in saying that for treating Shelley as a 
philosopher, I shall be attacked with great '^positivism" by the 
disciples'^ of manufacturers of bran-new Brummagen philosophies 
dug out of Aristotelian and other depths to which are added 
new thoughts, not their own. The reason which David Masson 
offers in his ''Recent British Philosophy" for placing Alfred 
Tennyson among the same class is equally applicable now : 

" To those who are too strongly possessed with our common 
habit of classifying writers into kinds, as historians, poets, scien- 
tific and speculative writers, and so on, it may seem strange to 
include Mr. Tennyson in this list. But as I have advisedly re- 
ferred to Wordsworth as one of the representatives alid powers 
of British philosophy in the age immediately past, so I advisedly 

* If Diogenes or Socrates, leaving High Olympus and sweet converse with the immor- 
tals, were to condescend to visit New York some Friday evening, I am sadly afraid they 
would be astounded at many of their would-be brothers in philosophy. On seeing the 
travestie of ancient academies and groves where the schools used to congregate, the dia- 
logues consisting of bald atheism under sheep's clothing to trap the unwary, and termed 
" The Religion of Humanity," of abuse and personality in lieu of argument, of buffoonery 
called wit, of airing pet hobbies alien to the subject instead ofdisputating, of shouting vulgar 
claptrap instead of rhetoric, etc. — I sadly fear these stout old Greeks, having power for the 
nonce, would, throwing philosophy to the dogs in a moment of paroxysmal indignation, 
despite physiognomies trained to resemble their own, have these fellows casked up in tubs 
without lanterns, but with the appropriate " snuffers," fit emblems of their faiths, and drop- 
ped far outside Sandy Hook. A proper finale to the vapid utterance made by one of 
these gentry that all " Reformers should be annihilated." Imagine Plato or Epicurus 
offeiing such a suggestion. O tempora ! O mores ! 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 5 

named Tennyson as succeeding him in tlie same character. 
Though it is not power of speculative reason alone that consti- 
tutes a poet, is it not felt that the worth of a poet essentially is 
measured by the depth and amount of his speculative rea- 
son ? Even popularly, do we not speak of every great poet 
as the exponent of the spirit of his age ? What else can this 
mean than that the philosophy of his age, its spirit and heart in 
relation to all the great elemental problems, find expression in 
his verse ? Hence I ought to include other poets in this list, 
and more particularly Mr. Browning and Mrs. Browning, and the 
late Mr. Clough. But let tht3 mention of Mr. Tennyson suggest 
such other names, and stand as a sufficient protest against our 
absurd habit of omitting such in a connection like the present. As 
if, forsooth, when a writer passed into verse, he were to be aban- 
doned as utterly out of calculable relationship to all on this 
side of the boundary, and no account were to be taken of his 
thoughts and doings, except in a kind of curious appendix at the 
end of the general register ? What if philosophy, at a certain 
extreme range, and of a certain kind, tends of necessity to pass 
into poesy, and can hardly help being passionate and metrical ? 
If so, might not the omission of poets, purely as being such, 
from a conspectus of the speculative writers of any time, lead 
to erroneous conclusions, by giving an undue prominence in the 
estimate of all such philosophizing as could most easily, by its 
nature, refrain from passionate or poetic expression ? Thus, 
would philosophy, or one kind of philosophy in comparison 
with another, have seemed to had been in such a diminished 
condition in Britain about the year 1830, if critics had been in 
the habit of counting Wordsworth in the philosophic list as well 
as Coleridge, Mackintosh, Bentham, and James Mill ? Was there 
not more of what you might call Spinozaism in Wordsworth than 
even in Coleridge, who spoke more of Spinoza ? But that hardly 
needs all this justification, so far as Mr. Tennyson is concerned, 
of our reckoning liim in the present list. He that would exclude 
In "Memoriam" (1850) and "Maud" (1855) from the conspectus of 
the philosophical literature of our time, has yet to learn what phi- 
losophy is. Whatever else ' 'In Memoriam' ' may be, it is a manual 
for many of the latest hints and questions in British Meta- 
phj^sics." 
The soi disant philosophers and classifiers of the sciences and 



6 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

arts wlio will not permit sncli poets as Shelley an'd Tennyson to 
be pnt in the category of philosophers, remind one very forcibly 
of the passage in Macbeth : ' ' The earth has bubbles, as the water 
has, and these are of them !" 

As a poet and not as a poet, as an acknowledged legislator for 
the race, as a philosopher, (a searcher after, or lover of wisdom) 
and as a political and social reformer, it is my intention to treat 
Shelley this evening, and" having finished my prefatory re- 
marks, will now regard him in those attributes which peculiarly 
should enshrine him in your hearts and mine. 

The philosophical theories of advanced thinkers are always 
tinged with the reflex of that which called them forth, or im- 
peded them in their development, consequently social bondage 
and the '' anarch custom" being always present to Shelley, the 
great idea ever uppermost to him was that true happiness is 
only attainable in perfect freedom : the atrocious system of fag- 
ging, now almost extinct in the English Public Schools and the 
tyrannical venality of ushers, deeply impressed themselves on 
the mind of Shelley, and he tells us, in the beautiful lines to his 
wife, of the remembrance of his endeavors to overthrow these 
abominations having failed, of flying from ''the harsh and 
grating strife of tyrants and of foes " and of the high and noble 
resolves which inspired him : 

"And then I clasp'd my hands, and look'd around ; 
But none were near to mock my streaming eyes, 
Which pour'd their warm drops on the sunny ground. 
So, without shame, I spake : ' I will be wise. 
And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies 
Such power ; for I grow weary to behold 
The selfish and the strong still tyrannize 
Without reproach or check.' I then controU'd 
My tears ; my heart grew calm ; and I was meek and bold, 

"And from that hour did I, with earnest thought, 
Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore ; ^ 

Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught, 
I cared to learn ; but from that secret store 
Wrought linked armor for my soul, before 
It might walk forth, to war among mankind. 
Thus, power and hope were strengthen'd more and more 
Within me, till there came upon my mmd 
A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined." 

The fruits born of this seed are discernible in every line of 



PERCY EYSSHE SHELLEY. 7 

his works. While having all reverence for his college companions, 
Aristotle, ^schylus, and Demosthenes, his mind instinctively 
turns towards the deemed heretical works of the later French 
philosophers, D'Holbach, Condillac, La Place, Rousseau, the en- 
cyclopaedists, and other members of that school. His intellect 
he furbishes with stores of logic and of chemistry, in which his 
greatest love was to experimentalize ; of botany and astronomy, 
in which he was more than a mere adept ; from Hume, too, whose 
essay on "Miracles," wrong as it is in the main on many impor- 
tant points, was one of the alphas of his creed — and with deep 
draughts from his great instructor, Plato, of whom he always 
spoke with the greatest adoration, as, for instance, in the preface 
to the Symposium : 

" Plato is eminently the greatest among the Greek philosophers ; and from, or rather 
perhaps through him and his master, Socrates, have proceeded those emanations of moral and 
metaphysical knowledge, on which a long series and an incalculable variety of popular 
superstitions have sheltered their absurdities from the slow contempt of mankind," 

It is desirable to call attention to the great minds from whom 
the student of the early part of this century could only cull his 
knowledge — he had no Spencer and no Mill, at whose feet' to 
sit — he had in science none of the conclusions of Darwin, of 
Huxley, of Tyndall, of Murchison, of Lyell, to refer to, and 
yet I think, that the careful reader will, like myself, find pre- 
figured in Shelley' s works much of that of which the world is 
in full possession to-day, and which the mystical Occultists, 
Rosicrucians, and Cabalists have now, and have ever had, con- 
joined to a mysterious command over the active hidden material 
and spiritual powers in the infinite domain of nature. 

The idea of the Sicpreme Poioer or God, as emanating from 
Shelley, is one of the most sublime to be found in the pages of 
metaphj^sical learning at the command of ordinary mortals. By 
many it may be considered only a vague pantheism ; yet, rightly 
regarded in a reconciliative spirit, it is of such an universal char- 
acter as to harmonize with not only Deism, Theism and Poly- 
theism, but even Atheistical Materialism. Listen to the follow- 
ing, which I select out of numerous examples, as a finger-post 
for others who seek the living springs of undefiled truth, as 
in Shelley: 

" Whosoever is free from the contamination of luxury and license may go forth to the 
fields and to the woods, inhaling joyous renovation from the breath of Spring, and catch 



8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

ing from the odors and sounds of autumn some diviner mood of sweetest sadness, ■w^hich 
improves the softened heart. Whosoever is no deceiver and deUroyer of his fellow-men — 
no liar, no flatterer, no murderer — may walk among his species, deriving, from 
the communion with all which they contain of beautiful or majestic, some intercourse 
with the Universal God. Whosoever has maintained with his own heart the strictest 
correspondence of confidence, who dares to examine and to estimate every imagiaation 
which suggests itself to his mind — whosoever is that which he designs to become^ and only 
aspires to that which the divinity of his own nature shall consider and approve — he has 
already seen God." 

Can any one cavil with these beautiful expressions, this out- 
pouring of genius \ If such there be, his heart and understand- 
ing must be sadly warped, any appeal would be in vain, for 
him the Yeil of Isis could never be lifted. After a careful 
study of Shelley's works I can find nothing to warrant the ex- 
ecration formerly levelled at his head, not even in the " Refuta- 
■'lion of Deism," that remarkable argument in the Socratic style 
between Eusebes and Theosophus in which, as in all his prose 
works, is displayed keen discernment, logical acuteness, and 
close analytical reasoning not surpassed by the greatest philo- 
sojjhers — most certainly his notions of God were not in unison 
with the current theological ideas, and it was this daring rebel- 
lion against the popular faith, the chief support of custom 
which caused all \)i\.^ trouble. If ever he attempted to show 
the non-existence of Deity, his negation was solely directed 
against the gross human notions of a creative power, and ergo 
a succession of finite creative powers ad infinitum^ or a 
\ Personal God who has only been acknowledged in the popular 
teachings as an autocratic tyrant, and as Shelley puts it in his 
lown language : 

I " A venerable old man, seated on a throne of clouds, his breast the theatre of various 
{passions, analogous to those of humanity, his will changeable and uncertain as that of an 
('earthly king." 

I Not to be compared with the far different eternal and infinite. 

" Spirit of Nature ! all sufficing power, 
Necessity ! thou mother of the world ! 
Unlike the God of human error, thou 
Requirest no prayers or praises, the caprice 
Of man's weak will belongs no more to thee 
Than do the changeful passions of his breast 
To thy unvarying harmony." 

And by this doctrine of necessity here apostrophised our 
philosopher instructs us in a lengthy statement of great clear- 
ness : 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. . 9 

" We are taught that there is neither good nor evil in tlie universe, otherwise than as 
the events to vi^hich we apply these epithets have relation to our own peculiar mode of being. 
Still less than with the hypothesis of a personal God, will the doctrine of necessity accord 
with the belief of a future state of punishment. God made man such as he is, and then 
damned him for being so ; for to say that God was the author of all good, and man the 
author of all evil, is to say that one man made a straight line and a crooked one, and an- 
other man made the incongruity." 

For you to better understand the exact position in which 
Shelley placed himself, it is elsewhere thus admirably expressed : 

** The thoughts which the word ' God' suggest to the human mind are susceptible of 
as many variations as human minds themselves. The Stoic, the Platonist, and the Epi- 
curean, the Poly theist, the Dualist, and the Trinitarian, differ entirely in their conceptions 
of its meaning. They agree only in considering it the most awful and most venerable of 
names, as a common term to express all of mystery, or majesty, or power, which the in- 
visible world contains. And not only has every sect distinct conceptions of the applica- 
tion of this name, but scarcely two individuals of the same sect, which exercise in any 
degree the freedom of their judgment, or yield themselves with any candor of feeling to 
the influences of the visible world, find perfect coincidence of opinion to exist between 
them .... God is neither the Jupiter who sends rain upon the earth ; nor the 
Venus through whom all living things are produced ; nor the Vulcan who presides over 
the terrestrial element of fire ; nor the Vesta that preserves the light which is enshrined 
in the sun, the moon, and the stars. He is neither the Proteus nor the Pan of the material 
world. But the word ' God ' unites all the attributes which these denominations contain 
and is the (inter-point) and over-ruling spirit of all the energy and wisdom included with- 
in the circle of existing things." 

Of these attributes generally supposed to appertain to Deity, 
he writes : 

*' There is no attribute of God which is not either borrowed from the passjons and 
powers of the human mind, or which is not a negation. Omniscience, omnipotence, om- 
nipresence, infinity, immutability, incomprehensibility, and immateriality, are all words 
which designate properties and powers peculiar to organized beings, with the addition of 
negations, by which the idea of limitation is excluded." 

There is no other writer, I think, who seems to grasp so clearly 
as Shelley the everlasting and immutable laws of ISTaturismus, or 
who believed so fully in the divine mission of man, aiid the re- 
ligion of humanity. Ever soaring into the ideal, philosophizing by 
the aid of his emotional impulses, Shelley possessed, like all true 
Hermetists and Theosophists imbued with mysticism, a wonderful 
power of continued abstraction in the contemplation of the Su- 
preme Power. His mentality, described by one of his critics as 
essentially Greek, ''simple, not complex, imaginative rather 
than fanciful, abstract not concrete, intellectual not emotional," 
contributed its share to his belief in a pantheistic philosophy, 
making him find Supreme Intelligence permeated through the^ 



10 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

wliole of infinite and interminable Nature. Regarding the uni- 
verse as an abstract whole, he endorsed the fundamental meta- 
physics of Plato, and believed that ''passing phenomena are|| 
types of eternal archetypes, embodiments of eternal realities." ' 

Even if despite of my assertions to the contrary, there be those 
who still insist on the atheism of Shelley, they had better re- 
study the elementary axioms and learn to think — to those who 
imagine that there is but little difference between atheism and 
pantheism to the discredit of either, I would remind them that 
Bacon in his "Moral Essays," lays down as a principle that : — 

"Atheism leaves to man reason, philosophy, nature, piety, 
aws, reputation and everything that can serve to conduct him to 
virtue ; but superstition destroys all these, and erects itself into a 
tyranny over the understandings of men; hence atheism never dis- 
turbs the government, but renders man more clear-sighted, since 
he sees nothing beyond the boundaries of the present life." 

In making use of this quotation do not let it be presumed that I 
wish to endorse Materialism ; my desire is to add the authority 
of a great mind like that of the Elizabethan philosopher, to the 
fact that superstition is so hateful that even blank, bald atheism 
is preferable thereto. I should state that Bacon in extension of 
the extract I have quoted, speaking of this soul-destroying in- 
cubus on humanity observes that: — "A little philosophy in- 
clineth men' s minds to ath eism ; but depth in philosophy bring- 
eth men's minds to religion." 

No amount of mere reasoning, or argument a priori or a 
posteriori^ can prove the existence of the Most High or destroy 
the same ; in every breast is implanted an innate belief in 
Deity, the inner consciousness of the race, by the "Yox 
Dei" speaking within, has throughout all-time, the past and 
the present revelled in this sublimity, and will continue to do so 
in the future, notwithstanding the insane and insensate efforts 
of pseudo scientists or iconoclastic materialists — the brain and 
the heart must act in harmon}^ to consolidate a pure philosophy, 
for mere intellect alone is an untrustworthy guide. By logic 
Whately proved apparently indisputably the non-existence of 
Napoleon Bonaparte, at the time when there was no doubt in 
any reasonable mind that he was actually living in the flesh, by 
the same means one can disprove one' s own being, and so by this 
unsafe method have I frequently heard the God idea very learn- 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 11 

edly overthrown. On such occasions I have simply taken the 
words of the logicians for what all their idle wind is worth — 

ZERO. 

The Immortality of the Soul has ever been a subject of primary 
importance to all philosophers — the last dying efforts of Socra- 
tes, noblest of Greece's sons, as Plato has shown us in the 
Phsedo, were expended in a discussion on the ]ora8 and cons of 
an argument in favor of a future life. Many of the highest in- 
telligences since his day have been endeavoring to prove this 
satisfactorily without the aid of theological revelation. All 
mankind, from sage to peasant, from the most learned Brahmin 
on the banks of the Ganges to the untutored red Indian beside 
the Mississippi, has the question, ' ' is there an existence after 
death," been approached with the most earnest hopes to solve as 
one of the greatest mysteries. Shelley devoted a vast amount 
of energy to the elucidation of this occult, yet overt, truth ; and 
in one place remarks : 

" The desire to be forever as we are ; the reluctance to a violent and unexperienced 
change, which is common to all ; the animate and inanimate combinations of the universe, 
is, indeed, the secret persuasion which has (among other reasons) given birth to a belief 
in a future state." 

Full well he knew, that independent of matter, there was a 
power, which has been denominated by some, Spirit ; by others, 
simply mind, force, or intelligence ; and by metaphysical philoso- 
phers, soul. If he approached the subject logically, as in his 
essay, "On a Future State," the ignis fatims seems to escape 
him and be lost ; if poetically, with the innate voice which 
speaks within us all, ever present. 

After close reasoning in the essay I have referred to, he ar- 
rived at the conclusion that even 

" if it be proved that the world is ruled by a divine power, no inference can necessarily 
be drawn from that circumstance in favor of a future state," 

and that 

"if a future state be clearly proved, does it follow that it will be a state of punishment or 
reward ?" 

Then in extension of the same argument he urges : 

" Sleep suspends many of the faculties of the vital and intellectual principle — drunk- 
enness and disease will either temporarily or permanently derange them. Madness, or 
idiotcy, may utterly extinguish the most excellent and delicate of these powers. In old 
age the mind gradually withers ; and as it grew and strengthened with the body, so does 
it with the body sink into decrepitude." 



12 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

He also considered that : 

" It is probable that what we call thought is not an actual being, but no more than the 
relation between certain parts of that infinitely varied mass, of which the rest of the uni- 
verse is composed, and which ceases to exist so soon as those parts change their position 
with regard to each other. Thus color, and sound, and taste, and odor, exist only rela- 
tively." 

E^en granted that mind or thought be a part of, or in fact, 
the sonl, then he asks in what manner it could be made a proof 
of its imperishability, as all that we see or know perishes and is 
changed. 

Here then comes the query, ''Have we existed before birth ?" 
A difficult possibility to conceive of individual intelligence and 
if unprovable against the theory of existence after death. 

He then winds up the whole by thinking that it is impossible 
that, 

" we should continue to exjst after death in some mode totally inconceivable to us at 
present." 

and that only those who desire to be persuaded are per- 
suaded. 

This is but a rough outline of some of the principal features 
of his. considerations on soul immortality from a logical basis, 
and which, after all, only constitute an argument, to which, and 
the thoughts presented therein, he did not necessarily bind him- 
self. There can be little doubt, independently of what I have 
quoted, that he did not believe in a future state as popularly ac- 
cepted. Trelawney asked him. on one occasion : "Do you believe 
in the immortality of the spirits" "Shelley's answer was un- 
mistakable, " Certainly not ; how can I ? We know nothing ; 
we have no evidence." "^ 

When we take Shelley from a poetical standpoint, or with 
the divine truism implanted by the Ain-soph clamoring within to 
his intelligence for expression, how confident he appears of a 
hereafter, as in the "Adonais," or in the following extract 
from an unpublished letter to his father-in-law, William God- 
win, the property of my friend C. W. Frederickson, of New 
York, one of the most enthusiastic admirers of Shelley, and 

* Those who desire to fully investigate Shelley's ideas on the immortality of the 
soul, and the existence, or nature, of Deity, will be amply repaid by reading W. M. Ros- 
setti's admirable memoir of the poet, appended to the last two-volume London edition 
of his works. 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 13 

who has been often known to pay more than the weight in gold 
for Shelley an a : 

" With how many garlands we can beautify the tomb. If we begin betimes, we can 
learn to make the prospect of the grave the most seductive of human visions. By little 
and little we hive therein all the most pleasing of our dreams. Surely, if any spot in the 
world be sacred, it is that in which grief ceases, and for which, if the voice within our 
hearts mocks us not with an everlasting lie, we spring upon the untiring wings of a pang- 
less and seraphic life — those whom we love around us — our nature, universal intelligence, 
our atmosphere, eternal love." 

How exquisite these remarks and his description of a disem- 
bodied spirit : 

" it stood 
All beautiful in naked purity, 
The perfect semblance of its bodily frame, 
Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, 

Each stain of earthliness 
Had passed away, it re-assumed 
Its native dignity, and stood 

Immortal amid ruin." 

It must appear impossible to any rational mind, that, with the 
full evidence before their eyes, materialists can attempt to claim 
Shelley as endorsing their doctrines, for even in the ' ' Queen 
Mab," which has been considered by those not understanding 
it as a most atheistical poem, he speaks of — 

" the remembrance 
With which the happy spirit contemplates 
Its well-spent pilgrimage on earth." 

Positive dogmatists are tyrannically endeavoring to crush the 
belief in a soul, that All which makes the present life happy 
on earth, the hope of our heritage in a future state. To them 
the fact that the race from the dawn of history, and through 
the ages has knelt down in abnegation before this inscrutable 
truth is nothing. This glorious belief evolved from the primae- 
val Cabala, taught in ancient Egypt, found contemporaneously 
in India, enunciated by scholarly Rabbis, ever present before 
the Chaldsean and Assyrian Magi, and laid down as axioms in 
the philosophical schools of Greece and Rome, not only to be 
discovered a fundamental in the Egyptian, the Hebraistic, the 
Brahminical, the Buddhistic, the Vedic, but also in all the 
sacred books of every nation, and handed down and perpetuated 
to these days as a sacred legacy from the past, by both Mohammed 
and Christ. This, the great co-mystery of all the ancient mys- 



14 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

teries, shall remain ever present tliroiigh all futurity like ^'tlae 
existing order of the Universe, or ratlier, of the part of it Icnown 
to us,'^ to use the phraseology of John Stuart Mill. I*^ations 
may rise and fall, theologies may flourish and decay, but this 
glorious and divine inheritance shall never pass away. Let 
pseudo-scientists avail themselves of stale and exploded argu- 
ments, and urge that there is no invisible world, and therefore no 
immortality for man, but honest scientists, like Professors Tait and 
Stewart, in the " Unseen Universe," will agree with the Illumi- 
nati : '' in the position assumed by Swedenborg, and by the Spirit- 
ualists, according to which they look upon the invisible world 
not as something absolutely distinct from the visible universe, 
and absolutely unconnected with it, as is frequently thought 
to be the case, but rather as a universe that has some bond of 
union with the present ;" and like Tyndall, will be obliged in 
abject humility to acknowledge, unlike the initiated occultist, that : 
' ' When we endeavor to pass from the phenomena of physics 
to those of thought, we meet a problem which transcends any 
conceivable expansion of the powers we now possess. We 
may think over the subject again and again — it eludes all intel- 
lectual presentation — we stand at length face to face with the 
incomprehensible." . 

Shelley was ever calling attention to the fact that either from 
ignorance or the casuistical sophistries of mal-interested teachers 
who have distorted the divine pristine truths for their own base 
ends, emanated superstition, the taint of all it looked upon; and 
with no unsparing hand he flagellated the professors of the nu- 
merous false faiths, bastardized from their original purity, which 
have in their decay, darkened the earth, and with all the force of 
his powerful pen, mightier than any sword, he ridiculed these 
gross theologies existant among men, as in the following : 

" Barbarous and uncivilized nations have uniformly adored, under various names, a 
God of which themselves were the model : revengeful, blood-thirsty, groveling and ca- 
pricious. The idol of a savage is a demon that delights in carnage. The steam of slaugh- 
ter, the dissonance of groans, the flames of a desolated land, are the offerings which he 
deems acceptable, and his innumerable votaries throughout the world have made it a 
point of duty to worship him to his taste. The Phoenicians, the Druids and the Mexi- 
cans have immolated hundreds at the shrines of their divinity, and the high and holy name 
of God has been in all ages the watchword of the most unsparing massacres, the sanction 
of the most atrocious perfidies.' 

Of the treatment Judaism, the foster mother of Christianity, 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 15 

received at the poet' s hands, I will now recite two examples. 
To Moses, the Jehovah of the Hebrews is thus made to speak : 

" From an eternity of idleness 
I, God, awoke ; in seven days' toil made earth 
From nothing ; rested, and created man ; 
I placed him in a paradise, and there 
Planted the tree of evil, so that he 
Might eat and perish, and my soul procure 
Wherewith to sate its malice, and to turn 
** Even like a heartless conqueror of the earth, 

All misery to my fame. The race of men 
Chosen to my honor, with impunity 
May sate the lusts /planted in their hearts. 
Here I command thee hence to lead them on, 
Until, with harden'd feet, their conquering troops 
Wade on the promised soil through woman's blood, 
And make my name be dreaded through the land. 
Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe 
Shall be the doom of their eternal souls, 
With every soul on this ungrateful earth. 
Virtuous or vicious, weak or strong — even all 
Shall perish to fulfill the blind revenge 
(Which you to men call justice) of their God." 

In another place Shelley is equally descriptive of the early 
stages of Jewish history, and makes the following observations 
on the building of the Temple of Jerusalem, which rearing high 
its thousand golden domes to heaven, exposed its glory to the 
face of day : 

** Oh ! many a widow, many an orphan cursed 
The building of that fane ; and many a father, 
Worn out with toil and slavery, implored 
The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, 
And spare his children the detested task 
Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning 

The choicest days of life. 

To soothe a dotard's vanity. 
There an inhuman and uncultured race 
Howl'd hideous praises to their demon — God ; 
They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb 
The unborn child — old age and infancy 
Promiscuous perished ; their victorious arms 
Left not a soul to breathe. Oh ! they were fiends. 
And what was he who taught them that the God 
Of nature and benevolence had given 
A special sanction to the trade of blood? 
His name and theirs are fading, and the tales 
Of this barbarian nation, which imposture 
Recites till terror credits, are pursuing 

Itself into forgetfulness." 



16 , PEECY BTSSHE SHELLEY. 

Witli tlie enliglitennient of tlie present century in every depart- 
ment of knowledge, so lias a corresponding degree of advance- 
ment been thrown on the science of history, which Shelley only 
partially apprehended. An enormous amount of new informa- 
tion is now to be gleaned from the writings of Ewald, Fergusson, 
Biinsen, Deutsch, Max Miiller, Baring-Gould, Stanley, and 
other scholars of Orientation, which shows that the Hebrews, 
like every other nation, passed through the various phases of 
Fomadism and Pastoralism, to that of offensive and defensive 
war. The same as other races, they came through the usual 
steps in religious progress — Fetishism, Astrolatry, Polytheism 
and Monotheism. During phases in their history they partici- 
pated in the various forms of tree and serpent. Phallic, or fire- 
worship. They had, as the Talmud, Targums, and the Old Testa- 
ment show, a knowledge of the Egyptian or Chaldaic account of 
the creation and fall, the latter still to be seen on the walls of the 
temple of Osiris at Philse. They had much knowledge of the 
Cabala, through their great prophet Moses, who was '^ learned 
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," and, like Pythagoras, had 
been initiated into their mysteries, and who both imparted the 
knowledge in part to their compatriots, on which they both 
founded systems. 

A great traveler, and most learned modern writer on Occult- 
ism, who claims, on good grounds, to have been received into 
the ancient branch of the Posie Cross in the far East, Madame 
Helena P. de Blavatsky, imparts the following particulars: 
' ' The first Cabala in which a mortal man ever dared to explain the 
greatest mysteries of the universe, and show the keys to those 
masked doors in the ramparts of Nature, through which no 
mortal can ever pass without rousing dread sentries never seen 
upon this side her wall, was compiled by a certain Simeon Ben 
Jochai, who lived at the time of the second temple' s destruction. 
Only about thirty years after the death of this renowned Caba- 
list, his MSS. and written explanations, which had till then re- 
mained in his possession as a most precious secret, were used by 
his son. Rabbi Elizzar, and other learned men. Making a com- 
pilation of the whole, they so produced the famous work called 
Zoliar (God's splendor). This book proved an inexhaustible 
mine for all the subsequent Cabalists, their source of informa- 
tion and knowledge, and all more recent and genuine Cabalas 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. * 17 

were all more or less carefully copied from tlie former. Before 
that, all the mysterious doctrines had come down in an unbroken 
line of merely oral tradition as far back as man could trace him- 
self on earth. They were scrupulously and jealously guarded 
by the wise men of Chaldea, India, Persia and Egypt, and 
passed from one initiate to another, in the same purity of form 
as when handed down to the first man by the angels, students 
of God's great Theosophic seminary." 

Many Eree Thinkers, in their anxiety to crush everything be- 
longing to Christianity, often forget that, in throwing aside the 
Hebrew records as utterly worthless, they are getting rid of one 
of the most ancient literatures in the world. They also do not 
remember the history of a peculiar nation, strangely preserved 
amid the fluctuations of time, the purity and excellence of the 
Book of Job, the Psalms, and others which I could name. They 
cast unmerited contempt on these compilations, when, at the 
same time, they will throw themselves, with almost Fetish 
reverence, and apparently rapt adoration, before the Institutes of 
Menu, the Bhagvat-Geeta, the morals of Chaoung-Fou-Tszee, 
the Zend-Avesta, the Rig-Yeda, the Oracles of Zoroaster, the 
Book of the Dead, the Puranas, the Shastras, and the like. 

Well may the Sons of Israel be proud of their ancient descent. 
They suffered through Christian persecutions uncomplainingly — 
the torture, the rack, the auto-da-fe — and yet they bowed their 
heads in submission to the will of Adonai. To-day they stand 
upright and united, as in olden times. They have gained the 
victory over the false disciples of the l^azarene, who, in days gone 
by, forgot their erudition, their medical knowledge, their com- 
mercial activity, and general culture. Pre-eminent in wealth and 
learning, they are found on the lecture -platform, in the fields of 
literature and science, in the councils of rulers, on the exchange, 
in the legislature — everywhere. When Greece and Pome were 
in their infancy, this extraordinary people was in middle age ; 
and when our Saxon forefathers were in the lowest stage of 
barbarism, they were in a state of high civilization ; and to-day, 
although scattered, they show a compact front, firmly knit in 
the bonds of brotherly love, a model for Christians. The great 
reform movement now agitating Judaism, as well as every other 
species of political and metaphysical thought, will eventually 
aid to consolidate all the races into one race — Humanity. 



18 ■ PERCY ETSSHE SHELLEY. 

In order to make Christians prejudge Shelley it has been the 
wont of theologians, as nsnal in fighting their antagonists, to 
cry up a false issue, and to make their followers believe that he 
was rather more than a mere hater of Jesus Christ, and of the 
teachings of that religious and social reformer, in fact, that he 
was an infidel of infidels. To have no misconceptions — for it has 
been stated that Shelley changed his views on Christ, which after 
ten years' careful study of his writings, I utterly deny, it should 
be thoroughly understood that he regarded this pious Israelite in 
a duismal aspect — as Christ the Man, and as Christ the Grod. I 
must not, while here, forget that many advanced metaphysicians 
agree that they cannot satisfactorily prove the historical exis- 
tence of Christ, and that they have to winnow through a vast 
amount of chaff to get at his presumed philosophy, and the facts 
in his life, which like that of Buddha is wrapped up in tradi- 
tional fable. 

For the Man Christ, Jesus of N'azareth, the carpenter' s carnate 
son, the mystical Essene and occultist, Shelley exceeded in love 
and reverence many of the most earnest Christians, and in no 
theological writings can there be discovered such beautiful sen- 
timents concerning the " The Regenerator of the World," and 
the ' ' Meek Reformer, ' ' of whom he speaks as contemplating that 
mysterious principle called God, the fundamental of all good, 
and the source of all happiness, as every true poet and philoso- 
pher must have done. It is impossible to turn to any page of 
his works, where, in speaking of Christ, he fails in this — he ex- 
patiates with as great fervor as Kenan, Seeley, or Strauss, on 
Christ's exposing with earnest eloquence, like all true members 
of the brotherhood of Illuminati, to which he belonged, the panic 
fears and hateful superstitions which have enslaved mankind 
for ages, and extols 

" His extraordinary genius, the wide and rapid effects of his unexampled doctrines, 
his invincible gentleness and benignity, (and) the devoted love borne to him by his 
adherents." 

For the Q-od Christ, as depicted by the Sacerdotal order, he 
had the greatest contempt. It was impossible for a mind con- 
stituted like his to tamely rest contented with the incredible 
story forced on mankind's intelligence, that the Supreme 
Power could or would for any wise purpose be transformed in- 
to a dove, and re-enact the mythical part of Jupiter with a 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 19 

Chris fcian Leda, the Jew carpenter' s wife, Mary, under the dis- 
guise of a bird. Such a story and the theory on which it rests 
Shelley summarised as follows : 

" According to this book, God created Satan, who, instigated by the impulses of his 
nature, contended with the Omnipotent for the throne of Heaven. After a contest for 
the empire, in which God was victorious, Satan was thrust into a pit of burning sulphur. 
On man's creation, God placed within his reach a tree whose fruit he forbade him to taste, 
on pain of death ; permitting Satan, at the same time, to employ all his artifice to per- 
suade this innocent and wondering creature to transgress the fatal prohibition. 

" The first man yielded to this temptation ; and to satisfy Divine Justice the whole 
of his posterity must have been eternally burned in hell, if God had not sent his only Son 
on earth, to save those few whose salvation had been foreseen and determined before the 
creation of the world." 

The hero of this fabulous episode, beneath which a great truth 
lies hidden, the Christian Ahrimanes or Typhon, the Devil, as 
painted by Milton, he considered a moral being, far superior to 
the Grod depicted by the same author, and who, under the form 
of the second person of the Christian Trinity, Shelley tells us of 
coming humbly, 

" Veiling his horrible God-head in the shape 

Of man, scorn'd by the world, his name unheard, 

Save by the rabble of his native town, 

Even as a parish demagogue. He led 

The crowd ; he taught them justice, truth, and peace, 

In semblance ; but he lit within their souls 

The quenchless flame of zeal, and blest the sword 

He brought on earth to satiate with the blood 

Of truth and freedom his malignant soul." 

Elsewhere, in extension of the same, he puts the accompanying 
words in the mouth of God the Father, to illustrate the doctrine 
of Christian Atonement : 

" I will beget a son, and he shall bear 

The sins of all the world ; he shall arise 

In an unnoticed corner of the earth, 

And he shall die upon a cross, and purge 

The universal crime ; so that the few 

On whom my grace descends, those who are marked 

As vessels to the honor of their God, 

May credit this strange sacrifice, and save 

Their souls alive. Millions shall live and die, 

Who ne'er shall call upon their Saviour's name, 

But um-edeem'd go to the gaping grave ; 

Thousands shall deem it an old woman's tale, 

Such as the nurses frighten babes withal ; 

These, in a gulf of anguish an i of flame, 



20 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

Shall curse their reprobation endlessly, 

Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, 

Even on their beds of torment, where they howl, 

My honor and the justice of their doom. 

What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts 

Of purity, with radiant genius bright. 

Or lit with human reason's earthly ray ? 

Many are call'd but few will I elect." 

The popular faitli of Europe and America, wMcli experience 
demonstrates to tins age lias, even as a means of reforming hu- 
manity, been a complete failure, Shelley correctly believed, had 
the same human foundation and origin as that of other revealed 
theologies — he sums up the proofs on which Christianity rests, 
miracles, prophecies, and martyrdoms, with great clearness ; 
proves the absurdity of the doctrine of miracles, as taught by 
Christian writers, shows the falseness of the so-called prophecies, 
even granting the utmost warping of the real meaning 
of the Old Testament texts for Christian purposes, which 
he asserted were to be compared unfavorably with the oracles of 
Belphos, and points out that the Mohammedan dying for his 
prophet, or the Hindoo immolating himself under the wheels 
of Juggernaut could be cited equally as a proof of the divine origin 
of their faiths, as the reputed martyrdoms of Christians could 
of theirs. 

The development of Christianity, which was really founded by 
Paul, was a subject to which Shelley devoted much attention — 
he tells us that 

" The same means that have supported every other belief, have supported Christianity, 
War, imprisonment, assassination, and falsehood ; deeds of unexampled and incomparable 
atrocity, have made it what it is. The blood shed by the votaries of the God of mercy 
and peace, since the establishment of his religion, would probably suffice to drown all other 
sectaries now on the habitable globe. We derive from our ancestors a faith thus fostered 
and supported ; we quarrel, persecute, and hate, for its maintenance. Even under a 
government which, while it infringes the very right of thought and speech, boasts of per- 
mitting the liberty of the press, a man is pilloried and imprisoned because he*is a deist, 
and no one raises his voice in the indignation of outraged humanity." 

The numerical majority of Christians — the Greek and Roman 
Catholic — are as much pagans as their ancestors, the ancient 
G-reeks and Romans were exoterically. And why? Simply 
because on the break-up of the Roman empire— like Moham- 
medanism afterwards, which was the natural reformation and 
revolution from Christian image-worship — Christianity, in a 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 21 

natural succession, and by fortuitous circumstances, took pos- 
session of the executive, and placed on the seat of power a 
Christian Byzantine emperor in lieu of a pagan. Basilicas, 
dedicated to Jupiter, Mercury, Adonis, Yenus and the deities 
of High Olympus, were re- dedicated to God the Father, God the 
Son, God the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary, and the other saints 
(or gods) of the Christian Pantheon. Statues therein were re- 
christened, and the sacrificial altars were simply transferred for 
the use of the eucharistical sacrifice. The vestal virgins became 
nuns of the church ; the Sacerdotes, her priests ; the mysteries 
of Isis, her Agapse. Her incense, her pictures, her image- wor- 
ship, her holy water, her processions, and her prodigies, too, all 
came from the same source. Thus were the socialistic and com- 
munistic teachings, based on the Philoic-Essenism of the Re- 
former of Nazareth, paganized, prostituted, and entirely mis- 
represented. His life and labors were transformed from the natu- 
ral into what was considered by the vulgar the supernatural, and 
all those who dared — like Hypatia, with thousands of other 
pious and noble ancients — to deny his divinity, were sacrificed to 
this new Moloch, set up by parricide Constantines, or adulterers 
of the Theodosius caste. Tlius through the ages, has the race 
suffered under such murder, rapine, and lust, as never disgraced 
tolerant ancient heathendom in the interests of paganism, even as 
recently happened in Central America,* and would happen every- 

* I refer to the abominable outrages perpetrated a few months ago at San 
Miguel, Panama, where popular preachers were forced by the ecclesiastical powers to 
foment rebellion by violently denouncing the State authorities, who had refused to 
allow a pastoral of the Christian Bishop of San Salvador, hostile to the laws, to be read in 
the churches. Having been put into a state of frenzy by one Palacios, a canon of the 
cathedral, a fanatic mob revolted, liberated prisoners, murdered generals in command, 
massacred numbers of the best citizens, set fire to the city with kerosene, and destroyed 
over one million dollars' worth of property. After this theological revolt had been put down, 
passports, couched in the following terms, and sealed with the seal of the bishopric, were 
found on the bodies of some of these holy murderers : 

" Peter. — Open to the bearer the gates of heaven, who has died for religion. 

(Signed), George, Bishop of San Salvador." 

Similar attempts were made by the Christian hierarchy in Brazil against the Masonic 
body ; but, fortunately, the emperor, a liberal and an enlightened savant, crushed the 
attempt under foot, and unmistakably proved, to the satisfaction of humanity, that he 
was not to be transformed into a nineteenth century Charles the Ninth or Philip the Second, 
and act the cat's paw for Pio Nono, ex-carbonari and recusant mason, to wreak his ven- 
geance on the brethren whom he had betrayed. 



22 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

wliere else, if priestcraft had the power to act without restraint, 
so that, as Shelley says, 

" Earth groans beneath religion's iron age, 
And priests dare babble of a God of Peace — 
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, 
Murdering the while, uprooting every germ 
Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all, 
Making the earth a slaughter-house." 

To those who will look down the ages, I wonld ask, is this 
picture overdrawn ? and further, to remember that in Shelley' s 
own words : 

r 

" Eleven millions of men, women and children have been killed in battle, butchered 
in their sleep, burned to death at public festivals of sacrifice, poisoned, tortured, assassi- 
nated and pillaged in the spirit of the religion of peace, and for the glory of the most 
merciful God." 

Is it amazing that he should have written such a ''highly 
wrought and admirably sustained" tragedy as the ''Cenci," 
founded on facts, and which has been deemed by competent 
critics the first since Shakspeare — that he should have brought 
forward, with vivid delineation, the crimes of the priest- 
hood — and that he should have made us remember the terrors of 
the bloody wars on heretics and heathen, in words such as these : 

" Yes ! I have seen God's worshippers unsheathe 
The sword of His revenge, when grace descended, 
Confirming all unnatural impulses. 
To sanctify their desolating deeds ; 
And frantic priests wave the ill-omen'd cross 
O'er the unhappy earth ; then shone the 5un 
On showers of gore from the upflashing steel 
Of safe assassination, and all crime 
Made stingless by the spirits of the Lord. 
And blood-red rainbows canopied the land. 
Spirit ! no year of my eventful being 
Has pass'd unstain'd by crime and misery, 
Which flows from God's own faith. I've marked his slaves 
With tongues whose lies are venomous, beguile 
The insensate mob, and whilst one hand was red 
With murder, feign to stretch the other out 
For brotherhood and peace ; and that they now 
Babble of love and mercy, whilst their deeds 
Are marked with all the narrowness and crime 
That freedom's young arm dare not yet chastise ?" 

Protestant Christians may urge that all this is not Christi- 
anity ; if it be not — for it is the record of the Church — I would 
ask, what is ? and where shall we find the history of Christiani- 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 23 

ty for the fifteen centuries before Luther' s time ? and where, to- 
day '^ Their predecessors plucked the plumage from the dying 
bird of mythology, as they, themselves, have robbed the liberal 
orchard of all its choicest fruits and palmed them off as of their 
own growth. Protestants would not, I dare say, now counte- 
nance the persecutions of the past, but yet, I would tell them 
that their Protestantism has been a great mistake ; and that, 
at this moment, there is no unity among the opposers of Cath- 
olicism, who are split into a thousand sects, wrangling for 
superiority, like wolves over offal ; and that their churches 
are gradually converging toward Rationalism on the one 
hand, and Catholic Sacerdotalism on the other ; in regard to 
which last, the Historical Roman Church — the only Christian 
body which presents a solid phalanx — one must not be too icono- 
clastic, remembering that, in the monastic houses and great 
ecclesiastical libraries we have had conserved for us, although, 
perchance by accident, the records of all the philosophy, all 
the jurisprudence, all the polity, all the literature, and all the 
civilization of ancient Greece and Rome, that remained from 
the Alexandrian library and pre-Christian times — the mediaeval 
clerics were the great conservators of knowledge, which we in- 
herit directly from Europe; and we should be, therefore, 
grateful to them equally with Mohammedanism, from 
which we received, through the Crusaders and the Moors, the 
basis of nearly all science and luxury, from Asia. There were, 
undoubtedly, many bad popes, men as bad as the incestuous, 
and, according to the recent dogma, the infallible Alexander 
Borgia ; priests who are not all vile, but many nobler than their 
system, acknowledge this with regret, and among whom there 
are some whom I can reverence, such as John Henry Newman, for 
instance, whose life would favorably compare with that of 
Shelley, or any liberal. There have been popes, also, whose 
lives have been as pure, as disinterested, and as virtuous as that 
of any stoic or epicurean. We owe much to Sixtus the Fifth, 
founder of the Vatican Library, and would-be regenerator of 
order in his tempoTal dominions ; to Leo the Great, whose pat- 
ronage of the arts has sent lis down the wondrous statuary, paint- 
ing, and works of genius, which are the admiration of the world ; 
and to Hildebrand, who brought together, in one harmonious 
whole, the struggling elements of European society. It is well 



24 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

to note, too, in order that I may not be misunderstood, that 
Catholicism is better than savage Fetishism, and Ration- 
alism in degree superior to either ; and, further, that Liberalism 
should only war with evil principles, and not with men whom 
they are generally the e^^ponents of ignorantly, and to the best 
of their knowledge. Comtism ^ acknowledges the fact that 
Christianity was not simply a mere advance on, but where we 
shall only find the civilization of Europe as it was during mediaeval 
times, and recognizes this most strongly, by placing over fifty 
of these great geniuses and luminaries, popes, bishops, and 
saints of the Catholic Church, in the Comtist Calendar, under 
the sixth and seventh months dedicated to St. Paul or Catholic- 
ism, and Charlemagne or Feudal Civilization respectively. We 
should thank the followers of Comte for thus bringing to our 
notice what we might be liable to occasionally forget in our 

Jotry and frequent over-anxiety. 
n popularizing terms wrongly, lies much mischief. If the 
sapplied term Christianity, signify the current notion, zeal 
( _„- truth, the good of mankind, and active virtue or Chris tism, 
^ the reputed precepts of Christ, then Shelley taught that ethical 
system, and the so-called Christian world which persecuted him, 
the opposite. 

No one believed, better than Shelley, in the necessity of con- 
tinuity, and that all theological systems are a portion of the de- 
velopment of Humanity. 

It should likewise be remembered, that even in the grossest 
superstition, as in the highest belief, the underlying aspiration, 
veiled perhaps, under some beautiful myth, is a straining after 
the pure and the good, and, as Shelley puts it : 

"All original religions are allegorical, or susceptible of allegory, and, like Janus, 
have a double face of false and true." 

It should also be considered, that it is better not to interfere 
with the faith of the ignorant, but let them remain in an exoteric 

* Comtism, or Positivism is that casuistical system of modern Atheism, founded by 
Augusts Comte, the Ignatius Loyola of Materialism, and which that learned pantarchical 
madman strung together in Esquirol's lunatic asylum. It is an insidious philosophy, full 
of Jesuistry, and teaches a soi-disant Religion which is Ir-religion, a pseudo-God, which 
has no conceivable existence, and an impossible immortality of the soul, ignoring a 
future state. The present crusade of Comtism in our midst, with false colors flying can 
be justly compared to that of St. Francois Xavier in Hindostan. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 25 

condition, nntil tliey are properly developed by snfficient edu- 
cation and consequent intelligence. It is just as mucli tlie duty 
of advanced thinkers not to tamper with the beliefs of men who 
are in an early stage of progress, as it is not to put a flaming 
torch in the possession of a lunatic, or a razor in the hands of 
a child. 

Shelley, in his philosophy, accepted all this, with the full 
consciousness that in the end truth would prevail — he yearned 
for the time when priest-led slaves would 

" Cease to proclaim that man 
Inherits vice and misery, when force 
And falsehood hang even o'er the cradled babe, 
Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good," 

and for that epoch when " the Mohammedan, the Jew, the Chris- 
tian, the Deist, and the Atheist will live together in one com- 
munity, equally sharing the benefits which arise from its asso- 
ciations, and united in the bonds of charity and brotherly 
love." 

With Shelley we can turn with delight to the gospels of the 
future, as of the ancient past ; and the ramifications of the 
Trinity of a truly Rational Religion, IN'ature, Science, and Art, 
where we have, instead of idle prayers, addressed to gross 
material idols, or the impossible entities hitherto depicted in 
theological systems, a feeling of real satisfaction in learning how 
to live rather than to die, and in practicing virtue and benevo- 
lence for their own sakes, than for improbable rewards in the un- 
satisfactory hereafter, enunciated from the theological platform. 

Like a true religionist, Shelley tells us that aspirations to 
^'Madre Natura," like the following, should be poured out in 
silent, grateful communion with Omnipresence, and not in tem- 
ples made by hands : 

Spirit of Nature ! here ! 
In this interminable wilderness 
Of worlds, at whose immensity 

Even soaring fancy staggers, 

Here is thy fitting temple. 
Yet not the slightest leaf 
That quivers to the passing breeze 

Is less instinct with thee ; 

Yet not the meanest worm 
That lurks in graves, and fattens on the dead 

Less shares thy eternal breath. 



26 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

Spirit of Nature ! thou ! 
Imperishable as this scene, 
Here is thy fitting temple. 

From such a soul-inspiring altar should praises like tliese be 
raised, and with what sacred feeling would the puie worshipper 
revel '^ where spirits live and dream — where all that is sweet in 
sound, or pure in vision floats on the air, or passes dimly before 
the sight," for as the late Professor J. G. Hojt, in his essay on 
Shelley beautifully points out — "To him everything was God, 
and God was everything. Every place was peopled with forms 
of beauty and animated with living intelligences. Hills and val- 
leys, forests and fountains, were each thronged with presiding 
deities — bright effluences from the Divinity that stirred within, 
and shone above the whole." 

In leaving the first portion of my paper, I will make the fol- 
lowing quotation from a remarkable article on Shelley in the 
pages of the National Magazine^ which all minds unshackled, 
and free from prejudice, must acknowledge to be correct in the 
main, and which admirably sums up his efforts in metaphysical 
philosophy. Our attention is called to the fact that we dis- 
cover in all Shelley' s writings ' ' a freer and purer development 
of what is best and noblest in ourselves. We are taught in it 
to love all living and lifeless things, with which in the material 
and moral universe we are surrounded — we are taught to love 
the wisdom and goodness and majesty of the Almighty, for we 
are taught to love the universe, his symbol and visible exponent. 
God has given two books for the study and instruction of man- 
kind ; the book of revelation and the book of nature. In one 
at least of these was Shelley deeply versed, and in this one he has 
given admirable lessons to his fellow-men. Throughout his 
writings, every thought and every feeling is subdued and 
chastened by a spirit of unutterable and boundless love. The 
poet meets us on the common ground of a disinterested 
humanity, and he teaches us to hold an earnest faith in tlie 
worth and the intrinsic Godliness of the soul. He tells us — he 
makes us feel that there is nothing higher than human hopej 
nothing deeper than the human heart ; he exhorts us to labor 
devotedly in the great and good work of the advancement of 
human virtue and happiness, and stimulates us 

' To love arid bear — to hope till hope creates 
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates. ' " 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 27 

It is observed by Slielley that 

" The exertions of Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, and their disciples in 
favor of oppressed and deluded humanity, are entitled to the gratitude of mankind. Yet 
it is easy to calculate the degree of moral and intellectual improvement which the 
M^orld would have exhibited, had they never lived. A little more nonsense would have 
been talked for a century or two ; and perhaps a few more men, women and children 
burnt as heretics. We might not at this moment have been congratulating each other on 
the abolition of the Inquisition in Spain." 

The vast impetus, which these extraordinary geniuses gave to 
freedom in metaphysical strongholds, led to a corresponding 
degree of liberty in the political and social relations. 

Slielley was not one who 

" beheld the woe 
In which mankind was bound, and deem'd that fate 
Which made them abject, would preserve them so." 

but on the contrary was aware of the progressive character of 
the race, and threw himself with all his heart and soul into the 
cause of Republicanism, and never slackened in his efforts till 
death took him from his work. His noblest endeavors were' 
directed toward the cause of suffering humanity, crushed under 
the weight of despotism ; and his tuneful lyre was ever struck 
in behalf of the Goddess of Freedom, to whom, in that soul inspi- 
ring "Ode to Liberty," he offers chaplets of the most glorious 
verse to rouse the nations from their apathy. He has given us his 
reflections on the English Revolution, when Cromwell crushed 
royalty under his feet in the person of the tyrant Charles 
Stuart, and which, notwithstanding, rose again to befoul, in the 
profligacy and debauchery of the second Carolian epoch ; on 
the French Revolution, when an intelligent people drove out a 
brood of vampires, who had drained the blood of France too long, 
to be replaced by atrocious demagogues, hateful priest-ridden 
Bourbons and a Napoleon Bonaparte, the wholesale Jaffa pois- 
oner, on whose death Shelley wrote lines pregnant with repub- 
lican feelings : 

" I hated thee, fallen tyrant ! I did groan 
To think that a most ambitious slave, 
Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave 
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne 
Where it had stood even now ; thou didst prefer 
A frail and bloody pomp, which time has swept 
In fragments towards oblivion. Massacre, 
For this I pray'd would on thy sleep have crept, 
Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear and Lust, 



28 PERCY BTSSHE SHELLEY. 

And stifled thee, their minister. I know 

Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, 

That virtue owns a more eternal foe 

Than force or fraud ; old custom, legal crime, 

And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of time." 

Witli full knowledge of all tliis, lie hopefully looked with loving 
eyes toward this side of the Atlantic, to your magnificent con- 
stitution and model Republic, built on the consolidated masonic 
bases of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, as did also the mass 
of my compatriots, who, suffering under a more intolerant des- 
potism, and unable to help themselves, had no hand or voice in 
the attempted tyranny, from which your forefathers properly 
rebelled one hundred years age. 

In ' ' Hellas ' ' we find Shelley advocating the cause of Greece, and 
it is believed, that that poem assisted his friend Byron in the 
determination to wield his sword in the cause of Grecian Liberty. 
'' The Revolt of Islam," his most mystical work, next to his early 
effort, " St, Irvyiie, or the Rosicrucian," is full of the most 
majestic and sympathetic thoughts, and underlying its weirdness 
we have all those elements " which essentially compose a poem 
in the cause of a liberal and comprehensive morality, and with 
the view of kindling in the bosom of his readers a virtuous 
enthusiasm for those doctrines of liberty and justice, that faith 
and hope in something good, which neither violence, nor mis- 
representation, nor prejudice, nor the continual presence and 
pressure of evil, can ever totally extinguish among mankind." 

Can w^e wonder tliat Shelley could be else than Republican 
when he regarded what Thackeray afterward summed up with 
biting irony, the record of the reigning house of Great Britain, 
the mad Guelph Defenders of the Christian Faith (.^), the results 
of whose labors have been corroborated by Greville and recent 
writers ? 

To what a line of monarchs, was Shelley called upon to give 
allegiance and prostrate himself before, andean we be astonished 
that he thus describes the state these abominable Hanoverians 
had "England in 1819:" 

" An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king, — 

Princes the dregs of their dull race who flow 
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring,-;- 

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 
But leech-like to their fainting country cling. 

Till they drop blind in blood without a blow, — 



PEECY-BYSSHE SHELLEY. 29 

A people starved and stabbed in untilled field, — 

An army which liberticide and prey 
Make as a two-edged sword to all who wield, — 

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay — 
Religion Cliristless, Godless, a book sealed, — 
A Senate — time's worst statute unrepealed, — 

Are graves from which a glorious phantom may 
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day ? " 

To aid Repnblicanism, he threw himself with fervor into the 
cause of the unhappy Caroline of Brunswick ; and on her ac- 
count he wrote "Grod Save the Queen," in imitation of the 
British national anthem, and the satirical piece entitled ^^ Swell- 
foot, the Tyrant." In the following words he attacked the 
prime minister, Lord Gastleragh, whose reactionary counsels were 
transforming England into a state analogous to that of Russia 
to-day : 

" Then trample and dance, thou oppressor, 
For thy victim is no redressor ! 
Thou art sole lord and possessor 
Of her corpses, and clods and abortions — they pave 
Thy path to a grave. 

For the Lord Chancellor, Eldon, his hatred was intense ; for, in 
addition to the crime of robbing him of his children, this occupant 
of the wool-sack, had made the seat of justice an appanage for 
his lust of wealth and power. I have already quoted some ver- 
ses on this renowned lawyer, and will now present you with two 
others bearing on the same subject : 

" Next came Fraud, and he had on. 
Like Lord Eldon, an ermine gown ; 
His big tears (for he wept well) 
Turned to mill stones as they fell ; 

" And the little children, who 
Round his feet played to and fro, 
Thinking every tear a gem, 
Had their brains knocked out by them." 

In Queen Mob, Shelley has presented us with an unmistakable 
portraiture of the "First Gentleman in Europe;" and in the 
following lines, which I have taken from this poem, I have 
chosen two extracts, descriptive of the origin of political 
despotism, and the reason of its continuance : 

*' Whence, thinkest thou, kin_gs and parasites arose ? 
Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap 
Toil and unvanquishable penury 



30 PEECT BYSSHE SHO^LLEY. 

On those who build their palaces, and bring 

Their daily bread ? From vice, black, loathsome vice, 

From rapine, madness, treachery and wrong ; 

From all that genders misery, and makes 

Of earth this thorny wilderness ; from lust, 

Revenge and murder." 

" Nature rejects the monarch, not the njan ; 
The subject, not the citizen ; for kings 
And subjects, mutual foes, forever play 
A losing game into each other's hands. 
Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man 
Of virtuous soul commands not nor obeys. 
Power, like a desolating pestilence. 
Pollutes whate'er it touches ; and obedience, 
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, 
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame 
A mechanized automaton." 

Slielley believed in reformation, not revolution ; and in the 
"Revolt of Islam" and Ms Irish pamphlets, we find him advo- 
cating a bloodless revolution, except where force was used, and 
then force for force, if compromise were hopeless. His idea was 
ever the foundation of political systems founded on that of this 
country, or on the ancient Greek Hepublic. He says : 

"The study of modern history is the study of kings, financiers, statesmen, and 
priests. The history of ancient Greece is the study of legislators, philosophers, and 
poets ; it is the history of men compared -with the history of titles. What the Greeks 
were was a reality, not a promise. And what we are and hope to be is derived, as it 
were, from the influence of these glorious generations." 

Hoping almost against hope for the regeneration of his coun- 
try, he submitted to the people of England a proposal for 
pu.tting to the vote the great reform question, which was filling the 
l^ublic mind ; but he was conscious that in the then unprepared 
state of public knowledge and feeling, universal suffrage was 
fraught with peril, and remarks that although 

" A pure republic may be shown, by inferences the most obvious and irresistible, to 
be that system of social order the fittest to produce the happiness and promote the genu- 
ine eminence of man. Yet nothing can less consist with reason, or afford smaller hopes of 
any beneficial issue, than the plan which should abolish the regal and the aristocratical 
branches of our constitution, before the public mind, through many gradations of improve- 
ment, shall have arrived at the maturity which shall disregard these symbols of its child- 
hood." 

An essay has come down to us (unhappily unfinished), in 
which he argues in favor of " Government by Juries." It is 
but a fragment, and yet it shows us that his mind was ever in 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 31 

search of tlie riglit solution of the question of proper legislation 
for the masses. William Pitt, with enemies on every side^ pub- 
licly acknowledged the extraordinary genius which impelled the 
American revolution, and admired the constitution of this coun- 
try, as well as the masterly character of the "Declaration of 
Independence." In unstinted praise does he speak of the learn- 
ing and remarkable public spirit of the signers. With equal 
praise, I am confident, everyone must eulogize the '^Declaration 
of Rights," compiled by Shelley, which he put before his coun- 
trymen sixty-three years ago. Therein he has given the whole 
of his conception of the correct theory of government, and it 
cannot fail to be read by advanced minds with feelings of 
genuine pleasure. 

The race has suffered through its long martyrdom with the 
horrors of war. One tyrant after another, to aid his accursed 
ambition or revenge his spite uj)on a brother monaTch, has 
cursed the unhappy earth and humanity with the terrors of 
long- continued devastation and bloodshed. With burning 
pen has Shelley depicted war in its most hideous aspects, and by 
most beautiful comparisons has he shown us the sublimity of 
peace. He points out, that 

•* War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, 
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade." 

He repudiates the notion that man, if left free, would wan-'^ 
tonly heap ruin, vice, or slavery, or curse his species with the 
withering blight of war ; and he shows us how 

" Kings, priests, and statesmen blast the human flower, 
Even in its tender bud ; their influ:ence darts 
Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins 
Of desolate society. The child, 
Ere he can lisp his mother's sacred name, 
Swells with the unnatural pride of crime, and lifts 
His baby sword even in a hero's mood. 
This infant arm becomes the bloodiest scourge 
Of devastated earth : whilst specious names. 
Learnt in soft childhood's unsuspecting hour, 
Serve as .tne '^onhisms with which manhood dims 
Bright reason's ray, and sanctifies the sword 
Upraised to shed a brother's innocent blood." 

In other places he seems to prophetically point out what this 
generation appears to comprehend— the judiciousness of arbi- 
tration — which in the future will be the true panacea for this 
frightful affliction of humanity. 



82 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

To tlie current Irish questions Shelley devoted much of his 
time, and took up his residence in Dublin, to aid the indepen- 
dence of Ireland, which might, under proper treatment, have 
been made one of the brightest spots in the British Dominions ; 
but the inhabitants of which, owing to centuries of English mis- 
rule and oppression, had, in certain parts, fallen into a condi- 
tion not much superior to that of those of Central Africa. 
When we contemplate what Ireland was before the ISTorman and 
Saxon had set their feet there, the most prejudiced antagonist 
of the Celtic race cannot but be astonished at the picture pre- 
sented to us after their usurpation. When Saxondom was in a 
state of barbarism, this branch of the Celts was civilized. 
Aldfred, king of the Northumbrian Saxons, has given us the 
experiences of a Saxon in Ireland over a thousand years ago. 
In a poem of his own composing, he tells us that he found 
"noble, prosperous sages," "learning, wisdom, welcome, and 
protection," "kings, queens, and royal bards, in every species 
of poetry well skilled. Happiness, comfort, and pleasure," the 
people "famed for justice, hospitality, lasting vigor, fame," 
and " long blooming beauty, hereditary vigor " — and the mon- 
arch concludes his really curious account by saying : 

"I found in the fair, surfaced Leinster, 
From Dublin to Slewmargy, 
Long-living men, health, prosperity, 
Bravery, hardihood and traffic. 

I found from Ara to Gle, 
In the rich country of Ossory, 
Sweet fruit, strict jurisdiction, 
Men of truth, chess-playing. 

I found in the great fortress of Meath, 
"Valor, hospitality, and truth, 
Bravery, purity, and mirth — 
The protection of all Ireland. 

I found the aged of strict morals, 
The historians recording truth — 
Each good, each benefit that I have sung, 
In Ireland I have seen." 

Such is the statement of King Aldfred, and the Venerable 
Bede informs us that in Ireland, Saxons and other foreigners 



PEECY BYSSllE SHELLEY. 33 

were "hospitably received, entertained and educated, furnished 
with books," etc., all gratuitously. 

Up to the middle of the sixteenth century, I find, after careful 
study in the Leabhar-Gabhala, the Annals of the Four Masters, of 
Clonmacnoise, of Loch Ce, and other historical records, the 
same continued apparent prosperity, but after the English took 
possession of the larger portion of the country, only the records 
of anarchy, despotism, and misery. Before the Reformation, or 
so long as the English settlers remained within the pale, Ireland 
had been as happy as Ultramontanism would allow, but fiom 
the accession of Elizabeth and the consequent attempted enforce- 
ment of a new theology, against the wishes of the people, a 
fearful succession of despotism is revealed. To force Protestant- 
ism on the Irish, Catholicism was put down by the most strin- 
gent laws — the torture chamber never empty, the scaffold rarely 
free from executions, the seaports closed, and manufactures 
forbidden to be exported ; "black laws" of a most iniquitous 
character, exceeding in ingenuity the devices of Tilly or Tor- 
quemada, placed on the statute book. The punishment for 
being a recusant Catholic, or Papist, was death, and it is a 
known fact that one Protestant commander. Sir William Cole, 
of Fermanagh, made his soldiers massacre in a short period 
" seven thousand of the vulgar sort," as Borlase informs us. 
Elsewhere the English behaved in the same manner, and on the 
authority of Bishop Moran it is asserted that the Puritans of 
the North shot down Catholics as wild beasts, and made it their 
business " to imbrue their swords in the hearts' blood of the 
male children." Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall, in their valuable work 
on Ireland, state that the possessors of the whole province of 
Ulster were driven out under pain of mortal punishment from 
their homes and lands, without roof over their heads, to be pent 
Tip in the most barren portion of Connaught, where to pass a 
certain boundary line was instant death without trial, and 
where it was commonly said, "There is not wood enough to 
hang a man, water enough to drown him, nor earth enough to 
bury him." One hundred thousand Catholics were sold as. 
slaves to the West Indian and JSTorth American planters by the 
public authority of the Cromwellian government. Such was 
the way these Christians showed their love for their fellow 
Christians, and can it be wondered that ever since then there 



34 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

lias been one continual succession of uprisings in that most un- 
liapx^y country ? As the sinew of Ireland' s people in this country 
were driven' by necessity, Heeing from the terrors of starvation 
and insufficient existence at home, so were the best of the race 
in the two previous centuries necessitated to iiy to the European 
continent, where we find them enrolled, for instance, in the 
service of the King of France, and having revenge on their op- 
pressors on the field of Fontenoy. Elsewhere in every country 
of Europe do we discover them or their descendants in the front 
ranks, and at the helm of affairs — ^in Spain, O'Donnell and 
Prim ; in France, Mac Mahon and Lally Tollendal ; in Austria, 
O'Taafe and Maguire. 

When Shelley arrived in Dublin in 1812, he soon found him- 
self joined to the body of the Repeal party, which was endeavor- 
ing to obtain back the parliament which had been stolen from 
them by British gold, less than a quarter of a century before, 
and to have the Catholic Emancipation Bill made law. He 
published two remarkable political pamphlets, in those days 
the only mode by which a statesman could appeal to the people, 
in which it may be noticed how well he could write in a pop- 
ular style, to effectually serve a purpose. They also prove 
his enthusiasm for the liberty of discussion, and how, although 
he was always willing to treat on politics alone, he was pre- 
occupied with metaphysical questions which continually crop 
out. 

In the first, which he called An Address to tlie Irisli People^ 
and wrote during the first week of his residence in Ireland, 
he commences by eulogizing the Irish, explains to them that 
all religions are good which make men good, and shows that, 
being neither Protestant nor Catholic, he can offer the olive 
branch to each. He then points out the weak spots in each 
other' s conduct in the past, the necessity of toleration, and the 
crime of persecution — how different this was to what Christ 
taught ! 

He endeavors to prove that arms should not be used — that 
,the French Revolution, although undertaken with the best in- 
tentions, ended badly because force was employed. He recom- 
mends sobriety, regularity and thought; for the Irish not to 
appeal to bloodshed, but to agitate determinedly for Catholic 
emancipation and repeal, which should be ensured through thg 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 35 

use of moral persuasion. And concluding with an appeal to 
Catholic and Protestant to bear with each other, using mildness 
and benevolence, and to mutually organize a society which 

" Shall serve as a bond to its members for the purpose of virtue, happiness, liberty and 
wisdom by the means of intellectual opposition to grievances," 

he winds up by saying : 

" Adieu, my friends ! May every sun that shines on your gi-een island see the anni- 
hilation of an abuse, and the birth of an embryon of melioration ! Your own hearts — ■ 
may they become the shrines of purity and freedom, and never may smoke to the 
Mammon of Unrighteousness ascend from the polluted altar of their devotion." 

In a postscript to this pamphlet, he urges 

" A plan of amendment and regeneration in the moral and political state of society, 
on a comprehensive and systematic philanthropy which shall be sure, though slow in its 
projects ; and as it is without the rapidity and danger of revolution, so will it be devoid 
of the time-servingness of temporizing reform ; " 

and quotes Lafayette : 

"A name endeared by its peerless bearer to every lover of the human race, 'For a 
nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it to be free ; it is sufficient that she 
wills it.' " 

His other Dublin pamphlet, A Proposal for am Association 
of Pliilantliropists^ consists of remarks of the same character 
as the former, but he gives a summary of the French Revolu- 
tion, which he endeavors to clear from the slurs which had been 
cast thereon. The information has come down to us through 
one of Shelley' s biographers, that he spoke at several meetings 
in Dublin. At the one in which he made his first appearance in 
public he aroused a large assembly to enthusiasm by his fervid 
eloquence, and yet, notwithstanding all his efforts, his toleration 
unfortunately became the great sfcumbling-block in his attempts 
on behalf of Ireland, for we learn that at another meeting of 
patriots : 

" So much ill-will against the Protestants was shown, that Shelley was provoked to 
remark that the Protestants were fellow-Christians and fellow-subjects, and were therefore 
entitled to equal rights and equal toleration with the Papists. Of course, he was forth- 
Mdth interrupted by savage yells. A fierce uproar ensued, and the denouncer of bigotry 
was compelled to be silent. At the same meeting, and afterward, he was even threatened 
with personal violence, and the police suggested to him the propriety of quitting the 
country." 

Bj many it has been said that Shelley was unsuccessful in 
his self-imposed task, but he was simply before his time, and no 



36 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

wonder, wlien we remember the condition of Ireland at tlie time 
of Ms visit. 

We know to-day that mnch of what he demanded has been 
conceded to Ireland by liberal English governments. An alien 
Church has been disestablished ; public education, Catholic 
emancipation, and a good deal more, has been given. In the 
late repeal movement, the young Ireland party, the Fenian 
organization, and the present Home Hule agitation, we find, as 
Shelley wished, Catliolic and Protestant working arm in arm, their 
colors being an admixture of orange and green — a healthy sign. 

Those who dishke this noble people — for the name is legion 
of those who are fond of shouting " ISTo Irish need apply" — I 
would recommend to think calmly over Irish history, to remem- 
ber the frightful outrages put upon this generous, warm-hearted, 
and impulsive race for centuries, and read up Fronde, Mitchell, 
Gold win- Smith, McGee, Mor4n, and other Irish historians. 

We know what the Irish are capable of, and that in Ireland, 
as here, after a generation or two of education, the old theo- 
logical belief becomes by a gradual process less and less strong. , 

On September 6th, 1819, a red letter day was added to the 
English calendar, through the slaughter by cavalry of a number 
of unarmed men, who were agitating, peaceably, for the rights 
of labor. This is known to posterity as the ''Peterloo Mas- 
sacre," and happened in Manchester, on the site of the present 
superb Free Trade Hall, erected by the Free Traders to com- 
memorate the ultimate triumph of their cause over the capital- 
ists, who, in the manufacturing districts, were, until a few years 
back, always aided by the military in putting down strikes or 
demands for increase of wages. 

At the time of this outrage Shelley was in Italy ; in conse- 
quence of it his attention was concentrated more than previously 
on the labor question, and he immediately composed half a 
dozen inspiriting poems, full of the fire of genius ; in one of 
which he calls, with a voice of thunder, to the 



I. 



Men of England ! wherefore plough 
For the lords who lay ye low ? 
Wherefore weave, with toil and care, 
The rich robes your tyrants wear? 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 37 

II. 

Wherefore feed and clothe and save, 
From the cradle to the grave, 
Those ungrateful drones who would 
Drain your sweat — nay, drink your blood ? 

III. 

Wherefore, bees of England, forge 
Many a weapon, chain , and scourge, 
That these stingless drones may spoil 
The forced produce of your toil ? 

IV. 

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm, 
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ? 
Or what is 't ye buy so dear 
With your pain, and with your fear? 

V. 

The seed ye sow, another reaps ; 
The wealth ye find another keeps ; 
The robes ye weave, another wears ; 
The arms ye forge, another bears. 

VI. 

Sow seed — but let no tyrant reap ; 
— Find wealth — let no impostor heap ; 

Weave robes — let not the idle M^ear ; 
Forge arms — in your defence to bear. 

VII. 

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells ; 
In halls ye deck, another dwells. 
Why shake the chains ye wrought ? Ye see 
The steel ye tempered, glance on ye ! 

VIII. 

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, 
Trace your grave, and build your tomb, 
And weave your winding sheet, till fair 
England be your sepulchre !" ' 

By far tlie finest composition brouglit ont by this occasion 
w2iQ tlie "Masque of Anarchy," a magnificent poem of ninety^- 
one verses. "Anarchy" he describes as riding "on a white 
horse, "^ in alliance with theology and statecraft, and whose ad- 
mirers were "lawyers and priests." 

* This doubtless alludes to the House of Hanover, the principal charge on whose 
armorial bearings is a white horse. 



'S8 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

After a series of powerful delineations, he describes slavery 
and freedom, justice, wisdom, peace and love, in exquisite 
terms. Then lie turns to their lamps — science, poetry, and 
thought, which make secure "the lot of the dwellers in the cot." 

He advises — That, on some spot of English ground, should 
be convened a great assembly of the fearless and the free, 
who shall come from the bounds of the English coast, and 
from every hut, village, and town, where, for other's misery 
and their own, they live, suffer, and moan. Also, 

" From the workhouse and the prison, 
Where, pale as corpses newly risen, 
Women, children, young and old, 
Groan for pain, and weep for cold ; 

" From the haunts of daily life. 
Where is waged the daily strife 
With common wants and common cares. 
Which sow the human heart with tares." 

When face to face with their oppressors, no force should 
be used, but instead 

" strong and simple words, 
Keen to wound as sharpened swords, 
And wide as targes let them be. 
With their shade to cover ye." 

The description of the Peterloo massacre which follows, is one 
of the finest pieces of composition in the language, and the poem 
concludes by calling the " Men of England, Heirs of Gflory, He- 
roes of Unwritten Story," to 

*' Rise like lions after slumber 
In unvanquishable NUMBER ! 
Shake your chains to earth, like dew 
Which in sleep had fall'n on you ; 

*Ye are many — THEY ARE FEW.' " 

In a pamphlet, written ostensibly on the death of the Princess 
Charlotte, he calls attention to the fact that three men had been^ 
executed in the interests of the "big-hearted and generous 
capitalists," of whom we now-a-days hear so much from their 
interested admirers, but whose wings are now fortunately 
clipped. 

Shelley considered that there was no real wealth but man' s 
labor, and that speculators pandering to selfishness, the twin- 



PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 39 

sister of debased theology, took a pride in the production of 
useless articles of luxury and ostentation. Imbued with this 
spirit, a man of wealth imagines himself a patriot when employ- 
ing laborers on the erection of a mansion, or a woman of fashion 
indulging in luxurious dress, fancies she is aiding the laborino; 
poor. He observes of such instances as these : 



o 



" Who does not see that this is a remedy which aggravates, whilst it palliates the 
countless diseases of society? The poor are set to labor — for what? Not the food for 
which they famish ; not the blankets for want of which their babes are frozen by the cold 
of their miserable hovels ; not those comforts of civilization without which civilized man 
is far more miserable than the meanest savage, oppressed as he is by all its insidious evils, 
•within the daily and taunting prospect of its innumerable benefits assiduously exhibited 
"before him ; no, for the pride of power, for the miserable isolation of pride, for the 
false pleasures of the hundredth part of society." 

Labor is required for physical, and leisure for moral improve- 
ment. What is wanted, he considered, is a state to combine 
the advantages of both and have the evils of neither. In fact, 
any unnecessary labor which deprives the race of intellectual 
gain, and all times not required for the manufacture of com- 
modities which are necessary for the subsistence of humanity, 
should be occupied only in mental or physical culture. 

Shelley lays down as a x^rinciple that commerce is the venal 
interchange of what human art or nature yields, and which 
should not be purchased , by wealth, but demanded by want. 
Labor and commerce, when badly regulated, scatter withering 
curses and open 

"The doors to premature and violent death, 
To penury, famine, and full-fed disease." 

Wealth was a living God, who rules in scorn, and whom 
peasants, nobles, priests, and kings blindly reverence, and by 
whom everything is sold — the light of heaven, earth's produce, 
the peace of outraged conscience, the most despicable things, 
every object of life, and even life itself. 

In a proper condition of society, which should be strictly co- 
operative, there would necessarily be no pauperism, and 

» " No meditative signs of selfishness, 

No jealous intercourse of wretched gain. 
No balancings of prudence, cold and long ; 
In just and equal measure all is weighed ; 
One scale contains the sum of human weal. 
And one the good man's heart." 



40 PEKCT BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

The fruits of Shelley' s enunciations on the labor and capital 
questions, and the school of political economists to which he 
belonged, have made wondrous progress. The world is begin- 
ning to see that labor has the unrestricted right of coalition, that 
there should be only a standard day's work, according to the 
wants of society, with prohibition of labor for at least one day 
in the week ; that legislation is required for the protection of 
the life and health of the working man, and that mines, factories, 
and workshops should be strictly controlled by sanitary officers 
selected by labor ; that no children' s work should be permitted, 
or women' s, which may be considered unhealthy ; that prison 
work should be regulated, and that laborers' co-operative and 
benevolent societies should be administered independently of 
the State. 

Liberals must learn from their enemies, must organize and let 
the ramifications of unshackled thought spread through the lands, 
and must, above all, conserve the control of education. Where- 
ever there is a church or chapel, let there be beside it a hall or 
club, in which shall be inculcated the simple doctrines of a pure, 
integralised religion. 

On the statute book of England there yet remains a law di- 
rected against the freedom of the press and discussion ; to even 
discuss the question of the-_-divinity of Christ was considered 
blasphemy, and the person so offending was punished most se- 
verely by the criminal laws. At the present time this wretched 
remnant of the dark ages is practically a dead letter. The 
friends of Shelley suffered from this most intolerant spirit. 
Keats, it is believed by many, was wounded unto death for dar- 
ing to speak on behalf of freedom, and we are given glimpses 
in the Adonais of his feelings on the subject ; Leigh Hunt 
and his brother were imprisoned and fined for the same ; the 
publisher of the pirated edition of Shelley' s Queen Mob was 
cast into ISTewgate ; Eaton, a London bookseller, had been sen- 
tenced by Lord Ellenborough to a lengthened incarceration, for 
publishing Paine' s Age of Reason^ and hundreds of others suf- 
fered similarly. The abominable circumstance of Eaton' s con- 
viction caused great uproar ; the Marquis of Wellesley, in the 
House of Lords, stated it was ' ' contrary to the mild spirit of the 
Christian religion ; for no sanction can be found under that dis- 
pensation which will warrant a government to impose disabilities 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 41 

and penalties upon any man on account of liis religions opin- 
ions." Shelley, wlio was then only nineteen years of age, and 
had himself suffered from bigotry at Oxford, threw himself pub- 
licly into the controversy with great vehemence, with "a com- 
position of great eloquence and logical exactness of reasoning, 
and the truths which it contains on the subject of universal tol- 
eration are now generally admitted." Lady Shelley, from whom 
I have just quoted, says that her husband's father, "from his 
earliest boyhood to his latest years, whatever varieties of opinion 
may have marked his intellectual course, never for a moment 
swerved from the noble doctrine of unbounded liberty of thought 
and speech. To him the rights of intellect were sacred ; and all 
kings, teachers, or priests who sought to circumscribe the activ- 
ity of discussion, and to check by force the full development of 
the reasoning powers, he regarded as enemies to the independ- 
ence of man, who did their utmost to destroy the spiritual 
essence of our being." 

To Shelley's able advocacy, and to his appeals against the 
stamping out of political and social truths opposed to custom, 
particularly the celebrated letter to Lord EUenborough, it can- 
not be denied that the toleration now enjoyed in Great Britain 
owes much. 

Shelley was one of those who most earnestly deprecated pun- 
ishment by death. In his early years, if a man stole a sheep, 
or shot a hare, committed forgery or larceny, was a recusant 
catholic or a wizard, there was, on his conviction, but one pen- 
alty meted out — death. To Shelley's sensitive nature, this 
painted and tinged everything around him with an aspect of 
blood. In one of his political pamphlets, summoning all his 
energies, he depicts in fearful colors, the depraved example of 
an execution— how it brutalized the race, and how it was the duty 
of man not to commit murder on his fellow-man, in the name 
of the laws. The abolition of the first of these, he stated that 
reformers should propose on the eve of a great political change. 
He considered that the punishment by death harbored revenge and 
retaliation, which legislation should be the means of eradica- 
ting, and he urged that 

" Governments which derive their institutions from the existence of circumstances of bar- 
barism and violence, with some rare exceptions, perhaps, are bloody in proportion as they 
are despotic, and form the manners of their subjects to a sympathy with their own spirit." 



42 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

In Englandj as in many other countries, ca,pital pnnisliment is 
now only employed on conviction of murder or liigli treason. 
In Spain and Italy it was totally abolished, on the foundation 
of their young republics. Thus have the labors of Shelley, and 
other reformers for the good of humanity, aided to extinguish 
crime made law. 

/ Cruelty to animals was another reform agitated by Shelley. 
/His love for the animal kingdom and hatred of blood-shedding, 
k was so great, that he personally carried the passion to such an 
extent as to become a vegetarian, and endeavored to induce 
others to be the same, in an admirable argument of some length 
in the notes to " Queen Mab." 

/The subject of the Eights of Women is approached and expa- 
' tiated on, perhaps learnedly, by individuals utterly incompetent 
to deal with the question. Such persons, frequently armed with 
Sunday-school platitudes, believing in the inferiority of women, 
consequent on the supposed fall, and doubtless with heads paved 
with good intentions, as a certain place is said to be, do more 
harm than good to the cause. This is not wanted, and is worse 
than useless. To found a real republic on a solid basis, it can 
be legislated for only by removing the ancient landmarks by a 
gradual process, and coming face to face with a new order of 
things, without bias or prejudice borrowed from the past. Thus 
that noble woman, Mary Wolstonecraft, as well as John Stuart 
Mill, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and numerous others, have treated 
this all-important question, which cannot be shirked b}^ the race. 
True reformers ask : What was the condition of the sex in the 
past ^ Look down the revolving cycles and note. In ancient 
Egypt, woman in the upper classes was almost the equal of man, 
and although, like Cleopatra, she could wield the sceptre, yet in 
the lower her condition was wretched ; in Asia, a mere slave and 
object of Zenana lust ; in savagedom, a beast of burthen. In 
Rome and Greece, Shelley shall tell the story : 

" Among the ancient Greeks the male sex, one half of the human race, received the 
highest cultivation and refinement ; M^hilst the other, so far as intellect is concerned, were 
educated as slaves, and were raised but few degrees in all that related to moral or intel- 
lectual excellence above the condition of savages. * * * The Roman women held 
a higher consideration in society, and were esteemed almost as the equal partners with their 
husbands in the regulation of domestic economy and the education o' their children." 

Eegard the incidents of a Jewish wooing, in which the woman 



PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 43 

had no voice, and of the marriage, the infernal punishments for 
adnltery, and the accounts of the seraglios of the Hebrew kings 
equalled only by Turkish harems, and some of the passages in 
the inspired Book of Numbers, for instance, in which the horri- 
ble truth is frequently too evident, and only equalled by the fact 
that after lust had played out its passion, unfortunate women, 
taken in captivity, could, by divine command, be turned adrift 
to rot or starve. In Christian Feudalism we find nothing much 
better. If I have read history correctly, and I may be wrong — 
the upper-grade women in mediaeval Europe, who were adored, 
not with love, but with lascivious and sensual worship, by Chris- 
tian knights and troubadours, and who, like criminals to the 
halter, were forced, rarely with their own consent, into the arms 
of men they disliked or had never seen, or were placed in con- 
ventual houses against their wills. Of the lower-grade women, I 
need only offer one example — and that is sufficient to ^ show 
their awful degradation ; the French and German feudal lord 
had the right of cuissage^ or, in plain English, the embraces of 
his serf -retainer' s bride on the marriage night. 

Shelley considered that in consequence of all this, men had 
forgotten their duties to the other sex, and that even at the 
time at which he lived woman was still in great social bondage, 
im^Droperly educated, tied down by restrictions, and refused 
participation in the higher positions of labor. He called not in 
vain, against the inequality of the sexes, and asserted that wo- 
man's position must and should be altered by forgetting the 
tyranny of the past, and, be determined, for the good of the 
future. 

We should be rejoiced that eloquent exponents of the abom- 
inations of former ages, the evils of the present, and the proper 
position of the future, are now hard at work. The ' ' Women' s 
Rights" party is up teaching men their duties on every conti- 
nent ; in distant India, the Brahmo Somaj is battling, not vain- 
ly, against the horrors of the Zenana, and in conservative Eng- 
land, which has been stormed, and the forlorn hope is now 
taking possession of the citadel ; everywhere it is the same. 
Yes, woman, thanks to Shelley and the reformers, is about to be 
emancipated and free ; free to earn her living, how, where, and 
when slie likes ; the equal of man, who shall no longer play such 
fantastic tricks as he did in tire past, in proof of his dignity and 



44 PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 

superiority. The fourth of July is not long past and gone ; I 
trust that in the dim vista of the future, our descendants will 
keep a national holiday, or a day to be set apart on which shall 
be celebrated the "Declaration of the Independence of Women," 
and then, perhaps, Shelley's description of woman in the ''Ep- 
isychidion ' ' will be more apparent : 

• 

" Seraph of heaven ! too gentle to be human. 
Veiling beneath the radiant form of woman 
All that is unsupportable in thee, 
Of light, and love, and immortality." 

/I now approach a very delicate portion of my essay : the ques- 
tion of the marriage relation. By many it is scouted with much 
virtuous indignation, but I conceive that the liberal, who, like 
too many, dare not discuss this matter in its broadest and widest 
aspects, should be stigmatized as unworthy of the name. Christ 
is reported to have urged the admirers of his ethical system to 
take up their cross and follow him, leaving father, mother, wife, 
children, and all they may have— 'thus Shelley acted, and it bears 
as equally pregnant lessons to free thinkers as it did to those 
Syrian fishermen. Oh, that liberals had as much ''faith" in 
the truth^ in the efficacy of their cause, as the first Christians are 
said to have had in the teachings of that Christ whom they re- 
garded not as a Divinity, but as a son of God, as we to-day are 
sons of Gfod, of the most high ! Oh, that we could carry that 
' ' faith ' ' into our beliefs, and the determination to be stopped 
at no obstacle which may bar the progress of truth, which must 
conquer in the end ! 

The favorite theme in the writings of Shelley is ''Eros," love 
of the individual, of the race, of nature, and in this he follows 
Christ, in whose system of Philosophy, Love is ever the pre- 
dominating idea which permeates mankind with its beneficial 
effects, and will, when the bastard tinsel with which the truths of 
the Nazarene are hidden, be replaced by that pure gold which it 
is impossible to trace in the enunciations of any previous phil- 
osopher. This subject is always present to Shelley, and he thus 
appeals in one of his poems to the 

" Great Spirit, deepest Love ! 
Which rulest and dost move 
All things which live, and are." 



PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 45 

In another place lie inquires — 

'• What is love ? Ask him who lives, what is life ? Ask him v/ho adores, what is God ? " 

And in the same essay he describes love as 

" The bond and sanction which connects man with man, and with everything which 
exists." 

Elsewhere he points out that the attainment of love 

" urges forth the power of man to arrest the faintest shadow of that without the possession 
of which there is no rest nor respite to the heart over which it rules, (and that) so soon 
as this want or power is dead, man becomes the living sepulchre of himself, and what yet 
survives is the mere husk of what once he was." 

Of such was Shelley' s philosophy of love, and I would ask if 
it be conceivable that the abominable calumny prompted by 
theological virus, that he kept a seraglio, as his friend Leigh 
Hunt informs us was reported, had any real existence. Shelley 
was too pure for any such idea as that of promiscuous sexual 
intercourse to be acted on by himself ; his life,; which lies ojDen 
before us, refutes the diabolical invention. The fact was, that at 
the early age of nineteen he married Harriet Westbrook, the 
daughter of a retired tavern keeper, a woman without soul and 
that congeniality of disposition which a man overflowing with the 
pulses of genius should have chosen. After a wretched exis- 
tence without intellectual sympathy, and on the advice of her 
father, who did not agree with his ideas on religion, they parted 
b}^ mutual consent, never to meet again. Shelley about this pe- 
riod met his second wife, a woman of the highest powers of mind 
and charm of body, Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin, the authoress 
of Franlienstein and other works, daughter of William God- 
win, the novelist, and author of Political Justice and Mary 
Wolstonecraft, the gifted writer of The Rights of Women. We 
are told by Lady Shelley that, "To her, as they met one event- 
ful day in St. Pancras churchyard, by her mother' s grave, Bys- 
she, in burning words, poured forth the tale of his wild past, 
how he had suffered, how he had been misled, and how, if sup- 
ported by her love, he hoped, in future years, to enroll his name 
with the wise and good, who had done battle for their fellow- 
men and been true through all adverse storms to the cause of 
humanity. Unhesitatingly she placed her hand in his, and 
linked her fortune with his own." 

After the death of his first wife, on the solicitation of God- 



46 PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 



win, who was anxions for the landed interests of his grandchil- 
dren, a legal union was performed. After looking on this epi- 
sode, in the most charitable manner, I am confident the stern- 
est moralist cannot but *' acknowledge that the passionate love 
of a boy shonld not be held a serious blemish, in a man whose 
subsequent life was exceptional in virtue and beneficence." 

Believing, as I have explained, in the divinity of love, Shelley 
regarded everything in the relation of the sexes with the most 
intense horror, which was not consistent with "freedom ;" and 
by which he most certainly did not signify the license attributed 
by many. When he looked around and saw the withering blast 
of forced marriages, conjugal hatred and prostitution, can we be 
astonished at his passionately exclaiming : 

" Even love is sold ; the solace of all woe 
Is turned to deadliest agony, old age 
Shivers in selfish beauty's loathing arms, 
And youth's corrupted impulses prepare 
A life of horror from the blighting bane 
Of commerce, whilst the pestilence that springs 
From unenjoying sensualism, has. filled 
All human life with hydra-headed woes ?" 

In a most important essay bearing on this passage, which 
should be widely studied, he observes : 

" Love is inevitably consequent upon the perception of loveliness. Love withers 
under constraint ; its very essence is liberty ; . it is compatible neither with obedience, 
jealousy, nor fear ; it is then most pure, perfect, and unlimited, where its votaries live in 
confidence, equality, and unreserve." 

He then urges : 

" A husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each other. Any 
law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affec- 
tion, would be a most intolerable .tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration ; and there 
is nothing 'immoral in this separation, for love is free. To promise forever to love the 
same woman, is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed." 

He states categorically that 

" The present system of constraint does no more, in the majority of instances, than 
make hypocrites or open enemies. Persons of delicacy and virtue, unhappily united to 
those whom they find it impossible to love, spend the loveliest season of their lives in un- 
productive efforts to appear otherwise than they are, for the sake of the feelings of their 
partners or the welfare of their mutual offspring; and that the early education of their children 
takes its color from the squabbles of the parents. They are nursed in a systematic school 
of ill-humor, violence, and falsehood, and the conviction that wedlock is indissoluble 
holds out the strongest of all temptations to the perverse. They indulge without restraint 
in acrimony and all the little tyrannies of domestic life, when they know that their victim 



PERCY BYSSIIE SHELLEY. 47 

is without appeal. If this connection were put on a rational basis, each would be assured 
that habitual ill-temper would terminate in separation, and would check this vicious and 
dangerous propensity." 

He conceived from the re -arrangement of the marriage relation 
by greater facility of divorce than was to be had sixty years 
ago/-^ 

" A fit and natural arrangement would result." 

Shelley by no means asserts that the intercourse wonld be 
promiscuous, but on the contrary believed that from the relation 
of parent to child a union is generally of longer duration, 
placed on such a footing, and marked above all others with 
generosity and self-devotion. 

We are on the eve of great religious changes, which must con- 
sequently disturb all the social relations. Historical Christi- 
anity still holds to her old text, of marriage being a sacrament, 
and therefore indissoluble. The founder of Comtism develop- 
ing this dogma, urges that after the death of either husband or 
wife the duty of the survivor is not to re-marry. Great 
Britain and many of the American States have conceded greater 
freedom in divorce, so as to carry out in a large measure the ar- 
guments of Shelley, while the theory of what is termed the 
'' sovereignty of the individual" is propounded by the leaders of 
the free love party, as a cure for the present and former diffi- 
culties. 

Whatever may be the outcome of the present widespread dis- 
cussions I know not, but I have belief in the supreme intelli- 
gence and in humanity, and am certain that neither the home nor 
the race will suffer, but that out of ail this agitation will come 
more refined sentiment and truer morality. 

I must now conclude. It has been said that there are two 
things in which the professors of all theologies have agreed — 
"To persecute all other sects, and plunder their own." Shel- 
ley, who subscribed to no theology, was persecuted by them 
during his entire life, but he ever forgave his persecutors, who 
he was confident acted through ignorance of his real motives, 
and he tells us : 

* It should be remembered that in Shelley's day divorce was obtainable by the most 
wealthy only, at an enormous cost and by a lengthy process, precluding the slightest op- 
portunity for the middle and poorer classes to avail themselves thereof. 



48 PERCY BYS31IE SHELLEY. 

" I have thought to appeal to something m common and unburden my inmost soul to 
them, I have found my language misunderstood, like one in a distant and savage land. 
The more opportunities they have afforded me for experience, the wider has appeared the 
interval between us-, and to a greater distance have the points of sympathy been with- 
drawn. With a spirit ill-fitted to sustain such proof, trembling and feeble through its 
tenderness, I have everywhere sought sympathy, and have found only repulse and disap- 
pointment." 

T>o we misunderstand Mm ? I think not, and William Howitt, 
a representative of the people, shall answer for them: ''For 
liberty of every kind he was ready to die. For knowledge, 
and truth, and kindness, he desired only to live. He was 
a rare instance of the union of the finest moral nature and the 
finest genius. If he erred, the world took ample revenge upon 
him for it, while he conferred in return his amplest blessing on 
the world. It was long a species of heresy to mention his name 
in society ; that is passing fast away. It was next said that he 
never could become popular, and therefore the mischief he could 
do was limited. He has become popular, and the good he is like- 
ly to do will be unlimited. The people read him, though we may 
wonder at it, and they comprehend him." 

This estimate is not overrated, for, having confidence in his 
mission to humanity, he was fortified by the belief of his exist- 
ing as an indestructible portion of interminable nature and the 
universal mind, which in all high intelligences lives through the 
ages, not only in the individual consciousness of the spirit, but in 
that immortality of soul or mind, which lives in the race. 

He hated the superstitions of Christian Fetishism and tyr- 
anny over the intellect, but loved Christ and the other philoso- 
phers with a genuine affection ; he loved humanity, and was ever 
fond of examining its highest phases, as, for instance, through 
the doctrines of perfect equality in the sexes — ^yet he recognised 
that sudden changes were prejudicial before sufficient progress 
had been accomplished. ''To destroy, you must replace." Jus- 
tice he considered the sole guide, reason and duty the only law. 
His morality was not that of pharasaical tartuffes, nor of pru- 
dish knickerbockers, who with wide phylacteries, sit in the high 
places to be seen of men. He only combat ted evil principles and 
fought hard in favor of good. 

He has been quoted as being too transcendental ; he may be to 
dullards with imperfect reasoning faculties, or theologians, who 
only see through fanatical and green-monsterish spectacles, but 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 49 

to men wlio have a Z/?)e philosophy equally adapted to modern as 
well as ancient thought, he is as clear as the noon- day sun. All that 
is required to comprehend Percy Bysshe Shelley, is integralism 
of that high order which has ever believed in the ultim.ate per- 
fectibility of human nature, and looked "forward to a period 
when a new golden age would return to earth, when all the dif- 
ferent creeds and systems of the world would be amalgamated 
into one, crime disappear, and man, freed from shackles, civil and 
religious, bow before the throne ' of his own awless soul,' or ' of tlie 
power unknown,' " whose veil it is the ambition of theosophy to 
raise for humanity, and remain the 'inscrutable" no longer. 

I have completed my task, and with humility 1 make the 
statement, knowing that before me are many who could have 
performed it as completely as I have crudely. I look 
upon my essay, in which I have treated my subject popularly, 
with intention, as a beacon, whence a little light may be shed 
dimly, hoping that others, better qualified, will bring you face 
to face with the full rays. 

I have shown you Shelley in his writings, his life and poetry, 
only where they trench on his philosophical and reform ideas — 
I could have related to you much about his inflexibly moral, 
generous, and unselfishly benevolent character — his pure, gentle 
and loveable existence — his utter abnegation of self, learnt from 
the hermetic philosophy, and his despisal of transitory legisla- 
tive honors — how he, the heir to thousands of dollars annually, 
and a baronetage, threv/ aside pecuniary considerations for love 
of the truth and benevolence, '^ and how, therefrom, he was 
often nearly dying of hunger in the streets. I could have 
treated him simply as a poet, full of experienced impetuosity, 
subtlety of expression, and precision of verse, but I have 
aimed to exhibit one side of his immortality to you, which lives 
in and by the race, for humanity. 

* " In his heart there was nothing depraved or unsound ; those who had opportu- 
nities of knowing him best, tell us that his life was spent in the contemplation of nature, 
in arduous study, or in acts of kindness and affection. A man of learning, who shared 
the poverty so often attached to it, enjoyed from him at one period a pension of a hundred 
pounds sterling a year, and continued to enjoy it till fortune rendered it superfluous 
To another man of letters, in similar circumstances, he presented fourteen hundred 
pounds ; and many other acts like these are on record to his immortal honor. Himself a 
frugal and abstemious ascetic, by saving and economising, he was able to assist the indus- 
trious poor — and they had frequent cause to bless his name." — National Magazine. 



50 . PERCY BYSSHE SHELLPJY. . 

Cut short in. the youth of manhood, who can tell what Percy 
Bysshe Shelley might not have become, living for us even per- 
haps at this moment? What need we care, though, for docs not 
the "Empire of the dead increase of the living from age to age f ' 
Shelley' s terrestrial body may have been cast up by the waves 
on the lonely Italian shore, in sweet companionship' with the 
souls of Keats and Sophocles. His mundane elements, purified 
through the fire, may have returned to tlieir kindred elements, 
and been 

" made one with Nature, where is heard 

His voice in all her music, from the moan 
Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird ; 

He is a presence to be felt and known. 
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 

Spreading itself where'er that Power move, 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 

Which wields the world with never-wearied love. 

Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above." 

His cinereal ashes may lie beneath the cypresses, near the dust 
of the " Adonais " of his muse, under Roman sod, and where he 
said : 

" To see the sun shining on its bright grass, and hear the whispering of the wind 
among the leaves of the trees, which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil 
which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and 
young children, who, buried there, we might, if we were to die, desire a sleep they seem to 

sleep." 

All this may have happened, but why need we repine, for as 
eternal as the sea, as infinite as Nature, and as the phoenix, he 
revivifying lives, transmigrated and transfused into humanity, 
for with certainty we know that 

•' He lives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he." 

Immortal amid immortals, his spirit in communion with the 
Most High, fully conscious in its individuality — immortal. amid 
mortals, his place need never be refilled, for he stands betwixt 
the old and the new — immortal amid the sons of song, do poets 
still breathe his divine afflatus — immortal amid philosophers 
and the regenerators of the race, with Buddha, with Moses, with 
Socrates, with Mahomet, with Christ — ^immortal amid the noble, 
the virtuous, the good, the wise — immortal as when living here, for 
from spirit-spheres we hear liim bidding us repeat : 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 51 

" Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 

Far from these carrion-kites that scream below ; 
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 

Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. 
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 

Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 

Through time and change, unquenchably the same," 

Peace ! peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 

He hath awaken'd from the dream of life — 
'Tis we, wht), lost in stormy visions, keep 

With phantoms an unprofitable strife ; 
And in mad trance, strike with our spirits' knife, 

Invulnerable nothings !" 



FINIS CORONAT OPUS. 



To be published by Subscription, in three volumes octavo, of about 
250 pages each, cloth, with Portraits and Illustrations. Price, $2.50 per 



volume. 



LIBERAL ESSAYS, 



CHARLES SOTHERAN. 

Asa wish has been expressed by many of Mr. Sotheran's friends and 
others, to have a complete collection of his miscellaneous writings pub- 
lished, it has been determined, after careful consideration, to issue a 
REVISED edition of his Essays under the above title, in three volumes. 
Each volume will consist of about 250 pages, printed in good readable 
type, and will be illustrated with Portraits and Wood-cuts. 



LIST OF CONTENTS. 



1. Secret Societies ; Their Uses and 

Abuses. 

2. The Jesuits. 

3. Christism. 

4. Irish History and Grievances. 

5. Mirabeau. 

6. Joseph Mazzini. 

7. Woman's Martyrdom. 

8. The Anglo-Saxon in Hindostan. 

9. The Present Spiritistic Crisis. 

10. Theosophic Spiritism. 

11. Spiritism among the Ancients of 

Egypt, India, Chaldea, Persia, 
and China. 



12. Spiritism among the Greeks, Romans, 

Druids, Jews, Early Christians, 
and Mahometans. 

13. Mediasval Spiritism. 

14. Spiritism in the last Three Centuries. 

1 5. The Seal of the Theosophical Society. 

16. Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philoso- 

pher and Reformer. 

17. The Sizes of Printed Books (Re- 

printed fro7n ' The Stationers' 
Hand-Book.') 

18. Alessandro di Cagliostro : Impostor 

or Martyr ? 

19. American Genealogy. 



Etc., Etc., Etc. 

The names of those desirous of subscribing to the above work, will, it 
is hoped, be forwarded at as early a date as possible to 

Charles P. Somerby, Publisher, 139 Eighth Street, New 
York City. 
Or to the author, 

Charles Sotheran, Office of the 'American Bibliopolist,' 
84 Nassau Street, New York City. 



BY THE SAIVIE AUTHOR. 

Genealogical Memoranda Relating to the Family of Sotheron, of the coun- 
ties Durham, Northumberland, York, etc., and to the Septs of MacManus. 
By Charles Sotheran. Including many pedigrees and other documents, 
specially certified by Sir John Bernard Burke, C.B., LL.D., Ulster King of 
Arms, and G. H. Rogers- Harrison, Esq., Windsor Herald. Illustrated with 
upwards of 50 Wood Engravings of Arms, Heraldic Seals, and Fac-simile 
Signatures. Large paper, demy 4to. 91 pages. Limited impression of 100 
copies, privately printed. London, 187 1-3. (New York : J. Sabin & Sons, 
84 Nassau St. Price, $6, boards, or $9 half morocco extra.) 

F7'07fi the ^^ ReliqiLary., Quarterly Ai^chcBological Joitrjial and Review]^ edited by 
Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A. Vol. xv. (1874), No. S'^ipp' 55 and ^6 : 



" The name of Sotheran, or Sotheron,'^ is one cf 
considerable antiquity, dating back in the county of 
York to the time of Henry the Third. The family, 
not improbably, come through the de Mittons, 
Lords of Mitton, at the Conquest, at which time we 
find recorded by Whittaker, the County Historian, 
one Ralph de Mitton. From this Mitton the descent 
of the Sotherons may probably be traced : Ralph, 
above-named, was father of another Ralph, who had 
four sons, Stephen, Orme, Jordan, and Sir Everard j 
of these, Sir Everard de Mitton was ancestor of the 
well-known family of the Mittons, of Mitton and 
Halston, co. Salop. His brother, Jordan de Mitton, 
was Lord of Mitton, co. York, and by Wimaca, 
daughter of Ralph de Eland, appears to have had 
issue Oto de Bayley, Lord of Biyley, from whom the 
Sherburnes, of Stonyhurst, paternally descended, and 
Hugo de Mitton, Lord of Mitton, who by his wife, a 
daughter and co-heiress of Robert de Gosnargh, had 
with another a son, Sir Roger de Mitton, donor of 
the advowson of the church of Mitton to God, 
St. Mary, and the Abbey of Cockersand. From 
Sir Roger, the line proceeds through his son, Sir 
John le Southern, of Mitton, Steward or Bailiff 
to Queen Eleanor, and the father of Hugh le Southern, 

*The origin of the name is thus explained in " Our 
English Surnames ; Their Sources and Signification. By 
Charles Wareing Bardsley, M.A." London, 1874, pp. 122-3 '• 

" Apart from this, too, the term ' Le Noreys,' 

was ever applied in early times to the Norwegians, and to 
this sense mainly it is that we owe the use of the name. 
And yet it has another origin. It was used in the mere 
sense of 'northern,' one from the north country. Thus in 
the Hundred Roils we meet with the two names of Thomas 
le Noreys' and 'Geoffrey le Northern,' and there is no 
reason why they should both not have the same rise. A 
proof in favor of this view lies in the fact that we have their 
counterparts in such entries as ' Thomas le Surreys ' and 
' Thomas le Southern,' the latter now found in the other 
forms of 'Sothern' and 'Sotheran.' Nor are the other 
points of the compass wanting. A ' Richard le Westrys ' 
and a ' Richard I'Estrys ' both occur in the registers of the 
thirteenth century, but neither I believe now exist " 



whose son. Sir Robert le S -uthern, inherited the 
Lordship of Mitton from the De Mittons, of whom 
a good pedigree, including the de Bayleys and Sothe- 
rons, is now in the press. In 1316, we find by 
Whittaker's Craven, the Nomina Villarum, and 
the Parliamentary Writs, th^t Thomas Sotheron, 
'vcl le Southern, was founo Lord of Mitton conjointly 
with the heirs of Sir Henry de Percy. Thomas 
Sotheron, last named, was the son of Sir Robert le 
Southern, and the father of Sir John Sotheron, Lord 
of Mitton; by his wife, Johanna, daughter of Sir 
Simon Cusack, who was summoned to Parliarrtent 
48 Edward IIL, as Baron of Colmolyn, and was a 
grandson of Sir Simon de Geynville, Baron Colmo- 
lyn (descended from the Genne.villes, Princes of 
Joinville, Counts Joigny, Seneschals of Champagne, 
etc.) Sir John Sotheran had a daughter, Isabella, to 
whom he gave eighty marks portion on her marriage 
with Walter Hawksworth. of Hawksworth, co. 
York, Esq., ancestor of the Hawksworths, Baronets; 
and a son, Chrisopher Sotheron, Lord of Mitton, 
who was the father of John Sotheron, who in 1419 
resigned the living of Upton-cum Chalvey, co. Bucks., 
and of Robert Sotheron, of whose son. Sir Robert 
Sotheron, of New Elvet, Durham, many records re- 
main. He was the father of Rowland Sotheran, 
who had with other issue Sir William Sotheran, and 
Capt. Lewis Sotheran, of H. M. Ship " Elizabeth of 
Newcastle," whose son Christopher was father, by 
his wife Isabel Smythe (granddaughter of Anthony 
Smythe, Esq., and his wife, Margaret Belasyse. second 
cousin of Sir Henry Belasyse, ancestor of the Earls of 
Fauconberg), with other issue, of Stephen Sotheron, 
Sheriff of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1561, and of Wil- 
liam Sotheron, merchant adventurer, of that place. 
This William Sotheran married Katherine, daughter 
of Ralph Willy, of Haughton-le-side, of a family 
described by the late Mr. Surtees, in his History oj 
Durham^ as " yeomen-gentry," and, with other issue, 



by her had two sons, Robert Sotheran, of Ample- 
forth, in the county of York, and William, who was 
the ancestor of the Sotherons of Darrington, the last 
male descendant of which family was the late Ad- 
miral Frank Sotheron, of Darrington. Robert Sothe- 
ran had a son of the same name who survived him, 
and who in his turn was succeeded by his son John, 
who had issue: his grandson, Thomas Sotheran,* of 
Ampleforth Outhouses, was baptized in 1700, and 
died in 1767, when he was succeeded by his son 
Thomas, who was born in 1730 and died in 1807. 
The eldest son of the last Thomas was also named 
Thomas Sotheran, and was of Lewisham, in Kent, 
he was born in 1782, died in 1866, and married 
Maria, daughter of Charles Price, of Newport, and 
of Somerset House, Esq , and granddaughter of Wil- 
liam Phillips, Esq., of Witston, High Sheriff of co. 
Monmouth ; he was succeeded by his eldest surviving 
con, Charles Sotheran, Gent., of Trinity Square, 
Newington, co. Surrey, who died in I 851, and mar- 
'ied Fanny-Elize, daughter of Henry John Hirst, 
Esq., of Howarth Grange, and Clough House, Roth- 
erham, of whose ancient descent a full account will 
be found in Mr. Foster's West Riding Yorkshire 
Pedigrees, under Sherd, Hirst, Westby and Laugh- 
ton, by whom he had issue two sons (one of whom, 
Henry, died young), and a daughter, Fanny-Elize, 
who became the wife of Stanley Leigh, Esq., B.C.L,, 
M.A. He was succeeded by his eldest and only 
surviving son, Charles Sotheran, Esq., to whom the 
world is indebted for the excellent account of the 
family now before us, and who, by his Marriage in 
l869with Mary Eva Mac Manus, second daughter 
of John Mac Manus, of Drumbroughas, Gent., by 
his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Phillip Mac Dermot, 
of Curlough, unites the Sotheran family with that 
of Mac Manus and a long and illustrious line of Irish 
kings. 

" We have thus briefly ' skeletonised ' the gene- 
alogy of the Sotherans for the purpose of showing to 
what an important line the present representative of 
the family belongs, and what a fine field of genea- 



*This Thomas Sotheran, by Frances his wife, had a 
younger son, Henry, wlio was articled at York, to a physi- 
cian in order to acquire a kiiov\]edy,e of surgery and medicine, 
but preferring literature tophy-;ic, he about 1760 entered in- 
to partnership with a v\eil known bibhopolist at York, 
and liis descendants in that city have continued in the pro- 
fession ever since His nephew Ti>onias Sotheran of Lew- 
isham, was the founder of the present publishing firm of 
Henry Sotheran & Co., London. 



logical research he had before him when he com- 
menced his task, and how immensely it has been 
augmented by his alliance with that of Mac Manus, 
in whose veins runs the blood of the ancient kings 
of * Connaught ' — a title which, within the past , 
few weeks, has been made a Royal one in the per- 
son of Prince Arthur — from Achaius Moighmeodhin, 
who died in A.D. 365, downwards. 

" The volume befcre us, which is the result of 
much patient labor and of deep research, contains 
pedigrees, tabulated and otherwise, of Sotheron of 
Darrington, Ampleforth, York, Surrey, Durham, 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Holme in-Spaldingmore, Hook, 
Howden, and elsewhere 5 Sotherne from the London 
V^isitation of 1633—4; Sotheron of Cloonderigmoyle; 
Belasyse, Earl of Fauconberg ; Braddyll of Conishead ; 
Phillips of Witston 5 Roberts of Coeddij, etc. De- 
scent of the Septs of Mac Manus, of Bally- Mac- 
Manus and Tir-Tuathail, from the ancient Kings 
of Ireland. Genealogies of Mac Manus of Roscom- 
mon, Leitrim, Fermanagh, Antrim, M'aynooth, etc. 5 
Maguire, Prince of Fermanagh 5 Maguire, of Tempo ; 
and Maguire, Baron Maguire, of Enniskillen. Notitia 
Sothernia. Grants of armorial bearings to the Sothe- 
rons of Yorkshire, Sothernes of Shropshire and Lon- 
don, Mac Manuses of Antrim, etc. Monumental 
Inscriptions of Sotheron, Thompson, Price, etc. In- 
ventories of Sotherons in the i6th and 17th cen- 
turies. Inq. post mort. of Robert Sotheran, of 
Ampleforth, 1619= Contemporary biographies of 
Admiral Frank Sotheron, Archdeacon Cathal Mac 
Manus, Author of the "Annals of Ulster," and 
others. Historical notices of the Sotherons aud Mac 
Manuses, from published and original unpublished 
sources. Notes relative to the families of Hodgson, 
Dealtry, Thompson, Punch, Gascoigne, Hanson, 
Proctor, Smythe, Ridel, Forster, Savile, Estcourt, 
Easterby, Irvine, Leigh, Hirst, Mac Dermot, OTlan- 
agan, O'Mullally, Newsome, Barker, Oliver, Cal- 
verly, S ndford. Gale, Jackson, Grey, Willey, and 
numerous others. 

" It is illustrated by many engravings of armorial 
bearings, fac-simile autographs; seals, etc. One of 
these we will notice. It is the arms of Sotheran : 
Argent^ a chevron between three branches of South- 
ernwood, 'vcrt ^ impaling Mac Manus, 'vert, a griffin 
rampant, or, in chief three crescents, argent. The 
crest of Mac Manus, it should be added, is a dexter 
hand, proper^ holding a Calvary cross with a tiiangh 
at base, or." 



Mr. Sotheron-Estcourt presents his compliments to Mr. Charles Sotheran, and thanks 
him for his enclosure respecting the Sotheron Family. Mr. Estcourt procured a copy 
of the very interesting account in Quarto of the Family some months ago, and has 
read it with much pleasure." — The Right Honorable T. H. S. SotJieron-Estcotut^ yiiiy 6, 
1874. 

Please accept my very grateful acknowledgments for your exceeding thoughtfulness and 
courtesy in presenting me with last evening's package of genealogical lore. I hope 
to show you that I, as an Irish-American, fully appreciate the very unusual interest which 
you have manifested in the history of my dear native land, particularly in that of the 
'old stock' as represented by the MacManus sept." — M. Hennessy, Esq., Commercial 
Editor of {N.Y.)7v!ics, Oct. 19, 1875. 

C 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

Alessandro di Cagliostro : Impostor or Martyr ? A Paper read before 
the New York Liberal Club, May 28, 1875. By Charles Sotheran, 32.'. 
Memphis, 94.". Mizraim, K. R. Hh, K. Kadosh, M. M. 104 and 1,052 
Eng, etc. i6mo. 50 pp. Sewed. New York : D. M. Bennett, 335 
Broadway, 1875. Price, 10 cents. 

" Having received numerous applications for copies of the erudite lecture on Count di Cagliostro, 
delivered by Mr. Charles Sotheran, I have consented to reprint, with a few additions, the report 
published in ' The Truth-Seeker.' In justice to the lecturer, I should state that my abridg- 
ment in that periodical, and even the present pamphlet, gives but a general idea of the actual 
merits of the paper, which took nearly two houi-s in delivery, was crowded with thesis and anti- 
thesis, with considerable information relating to the developments of Masonry, Spiritualism, 
and Rosicrucianism, and with extracts from numerous contemporary writers and historical 
documents, and which, owing to space, I was, and am even now, obliged, much loath, to greatly 
condense and in certain instances to leave out altogether. 

" As Mr. Sotheran has only been resident in America a few months, and, therefore, may be unknown 
to many of my readers, I reproduce a leading article from the ' Spiritual Scientist ' of June 
10, 187s, which refers not only to the essayist's capabilities as a literary man, but also to the 
fact that the Spiritualists have accepted Cagliostro as a former martyr to their cause : 

" ' We welcome to our columns a new and most acceptable writer — Mr. Charles Sotheran, an Eng- 
lish author of repute, and now the editor of the American Bibliopolist. Mr. Sotheran is a 
gentleman of extensive reading and ripe culture, who is well-known abroad as the author of 
several works upon the genealogies and antiquities of the English counties. He has also paid 
great attention to the literature of the occult sciences, and the article from his pen which 
appears in this week's " Scientist," is a brief summary of a most valuable historical paper which 
he read before the New York Liberal Club, the v/eek before last. 

"'The story pf Cagliostro's life, as low given, affords us a glimpse at a personage whose deeds 
and learning were the wonder of his contemporaries — a man of pure life, active benevolence, 
and, especially, of the strangest psychological powers. He could not only read the lives of 
those with whom he came in contact, but prophesy their future, heal their diseases, no matter 
how desperate they might seem, and call up at his pleasure the shades of whomsoever in the 
spirit-world any person desired to see. 

" ' He was a philosopher of the highest rank, a friend of human progress, and a most determined 
enemy of the Papal establishment. It is not surprising that, having once put himself within 
the jurisdiction of such a merciless government as the latter, it should adopt the flimsiest pre- 
text to arrest and condemn him to punishment ; nor even that it should seek to blacken his 
memory by circulating falsehoods about him, which should make his name synonymous with 
charlatanism and dishonesty. 

" ' Thanks to the labors of Mr. Sotheran, among the archives of the French government, the real 
character of this prodigy of the last century is now, apparently, displayed for our wonder and 
instruction.' 

" Mr. Sotheran ranks high as an historical critic. In evidence of this I should mention that, in 
addition to his published works, numerous articles from his trenchant pen have appeared in 
the pages of ' The Antiquary,' *■ Notes and Queries,' Howard's ' Miscellanea Genealogica et 
Heraldica,' and other English magazines. He was also one of the principal contributors to the 
important historical work compiled by Mr. Joseph Foster, ' Pedigrees of the Leading County 
Families of England and Wales,' and traces of his handiwork are to be found in Cansick's 
' Collection of Curious and Interesting Epitaphs,' Sheardown's ' History of the Yorkshire Yeo- 
manry Cavalry,' and Bailey's ' Life of Thomas Fuller,' to v/hich works, and others, he has given 
valuable assistance. 

" In conclusion, I hope my readers will be deeply interested in Mr. Sotheran's present valuable 
contribution to Biography, and I further wish that he will have that success he so justly merits 
in this country, his new and adopted home." — Proem to Pamphlet by D. M. Bennett^ Editor 
of " The Truth-Seeker y 

"Many thanks for the copy of your interesting Essay on Count Cagliostro. I have read it with 
much interest, and think you have treated the subject in a masterly manner." — A. B. Rlott^ 
M.D.^ Grand Master of the A ncient and Primitive Rite of Masonry^ A ugicst 24, 1875. 

" If he had read history carefully, he would have discovered, with your learned correspondent, 
Charles Sotheran, that ' Joseph Balsamo,' the charlatan and swindler, never existed except In 
the imagination of his infernal Romanist biographers, while half the sovereigns and courts of 
Europe recognized him as a philosopher, philanthropist, and one of the wisest and purest men 
of his day." — From an Essay on ''''Occultisin and its Critics^'''' by Col. Henry S. Olcott^ author 
oj ''^People frojn the Other IVorld^^ and several works on Genealogy^ Agriculture., attd 
Insurance. 

*'Mr. Charles Sotheran, a nephew of the well-known London publisher, who has been, since his 
arrival in America, in the employ of the Messrs. Sablns and Leavltts (as a Bibliographer), 
recently delivered a lecture before the New York Liberal Club, which has since been issued by 
D. M. Bennett, of 335 Broadway, in a ten-cent pamphlet, under the title of ' Alessandrodi 
Cagliostro : Impostor or Martyr ?' Mr. Sotheran. while in England, edited several genealogical 
and statistical publications which called forth praise, and he has in contemplation the publica- 
tion of his essays on Irish History and Grievances, Shelley, William Godwin, American Gene- 
alogy, etc. — The ^N,Y.') Publishers' Weekly^ July 17, 1875. 

d 



" The works *of the Hermetic Philosophers were never intended for the masses, as Mr. Charles 
Sotheran, one of the most learned members of the Society ' Kos(E Crucls^ in a late essay, thus 
observes: 'Gabriel Rosetti in his Disqiiisitions on the A7iti-Papal Spirit^ which produced 
the Refor^nation^ shows that the art of speaking and writing in a language which bears a double 
interpretation, is of very great antiquity ; that it was in practice among the priests of Egypt, 
brought from thence by the Manichees, whence it passed to the Templars and Albigenses, 
spread over Europe, aad brought about the Reformation.' ''—From article in the " Spiritual 
Scientist^'' by Madame Helena P. Blavatik-< , Corresponding Secretary of the Theosophical 
Society. 

*' Charles Sotheran, an English writer of some repute, but at present editor of the ' American Bib- 
liopolist,' gave a lecture before the Liberal Club in May, on A lessandro di Cagliostro^ which 
has been published in a i6mo pamphlet of fifty pages by D. M. Bennett. It is a strange and 
intensely interesting story, though the lecture is neither so fascinating nor so eloquent as the 
editor seems to imagine. Mr. Sotheran thinks the philanthropy of Cagliostro should enti- 
tle him to a pedestal beside John Howard or Wilberforce ; and he says : ' This man whose 
benevolence filled hospitals of his own creation, where his great medical knowledge was given 
without stint to those who needed it, and who, when cured, were sent away not empty-handed. 
His acquaintance with geology and the learned and abstruse sciences, should place him in the 
ranks of tlfce eighteenth-century pioneers of nmeteenth century discoveries, notwithstanding 
the fact that his disciples in their unhesitating reverence, yet ignorance, attributed miraculous 
cures and effects, to-day quite explicable, but then exaggerated to lengths as absurd as the 
miracles we read of in Buddhist and Christian hagiologies. The assistance he gave to free 
thought and his aid towards political regeneration, his hatred of the two co-eval evil principles, 
kingcraft and priestcraft, testified in the dissemination of the principles of " Liberie, Egalite, 
Fraternite," should receive our gratitude equally with those other patriots to whom the people 
of America and Europe owe the blessings enjoyed to-day.' " — The {N, Y.) Golden Age^ 
A ugust 7, 1875. 

"Mr. Sotheran is a young Englishman, a devourer of books and ancient authorities, a man in his 
ten-minute orations always ensconcing himself behind an array of formidable names. — Huxley, 
Darwin, Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Tyndall ! No American need apply. His tutelar genius 
is Cagliostro." — From satirical article on the Nezu York Liberal Club^ entitled " A Home 0/ 
Hobbies^'' in The (iV". K.) Sun^ Dece^nber 12, 1875. 

" The twenty-eighth issue of the ' Truth-Seeker Tracts ' (New York : D. M. Bennett) is Alessan- 
dro di Cagliostro : Impostor or ]\Iartyr ? By Charles Sotheran. The tract consists of a lec- 
ture delivered by Mr. Sotheran before the Liberal Club of this city, and in it he seeks to remove 
from Di Cagliostro's name the odium which he asserts has been heaped upon it, in a great meas- 
ure, by the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church. Di Cagliostro has now been accepted 
by the Spiritualists, or by some of them, as a martyr of their cause. Some of Mr. Sotheran's 
titles on his title-page are somewhat inexplicable to the average reader, and rather suggest the 
Reverend Homer Wilbur, A. M. One of them is ' K. Kadosh,' and another is ' M. M. 104 and 
1052 Eng.' " — The (N. Y.) Independent^ A.ugust 19, 1875. 

" At a regular meeting of the New York Liberal Club held in Plimpton Hall last evening, a paper 
entitled ' Alessandro Di Cagliostro : Impostor or Mart^T ?' v.- as read by Charles Sotheran, editor 
of the ' American Bibliopolist.' According to Mr Sotheran, Cagliostro was a philanthropist, 
scientist, republican, and philosopher." — The {N. Y.) Worlds May 29, 1875. 

" For want of room, we are compelled to greatly abbreviate Mr. Sotheran's lecture, and give merely 
the leading Incidents in the life of Cagliostro, thus deprivlngourreadersof very many of his grand 
passages and interesting recitals. . . . The paper, which took nearly two hours in reading, 
was one of the most learned and eloquent the members of the Club have ever had the pleasure 
of listening to. The lecturer was warmly applauded during its progress, and at the conclusion 
he received long and continued applause." — The {M. Y.) Truth-Seeker^ June 15, 1875. 

" The Other Side.— Brother Charles Sotheran, of England, in his lecture on Alessandro di Cag- 
liostro, put a very different complexion upon the life and workings of this celebrated impostor 
or martyr. A pamphlet published by D. M. Bennett, of 335 Broadway, Is before us, containing 
a reproduction of Jtsro. Sotheran's lecture on Di Cagliostro, and would repay our brethren's 
perusal."— 7"/;^ Corner-Stone {Masonic)^ July 31, 1875. 

' The lecture of Mr. Charles Sotheran, of the ' American Bibliopolist,' upon Cagliostro, before 
the New York Liberal Club, which was recently briefed in this paper, has been printed by D. 
M. Bennett, 335 Broadway, New York, of whom it may be had at ten cents per copy. This is 
something that every Spiritualist should have, as justice has, for the first time, been done to 
the character and psychological gifts of one of the most remarkable men and mediums who 
ever lived." — The Spiritual Scientist {Boston)^ July 15, 1875. 



BY THE SAi¥!E AUTHOR- 
Ancient Theosophy ; or, Spiritism in the Past. A Lecture delivered 
before the Society of Progressive Spiritualists, New York, November 
21, 1875, and before the Theosophical Society, Mott Memorial Hall, 
New York, December i, 1875. By Charles Sotheran, Honorary Libra- 
rian and Member of the Council of the Theosophical Society. In the 
Press. 

"The Society of Progressive Spiritualists held their usual Sunday evening meeting last night at 
Republican Hall, West Thirty-third street, and a paper was read by Charles Sotheran, one of 
the founders of the Theosophical Society, on ' Ancient Theosophy, or Spiritism in the Past,' 
mainly directed to the explanation of Theosophy." — The (iV. Y.) Worlds Nov. 22, 1875. 



EDITED BY THE SAME. 

Church Calendar and General Almanack, for the Diocese of Man- 
chester, for the year of our Lord 1873. Edited by Charles Sotheran. 
Containing : — A Calendar with the Daily Lessons ; information relating 
to the Church, the Universities, and the State ; A Complete List of the 
Parishes and Clergy in the Diocese ; Colleges, Grammar Schools, Educa- 
tional Foundations, and School Boards ; Diocesan Societies and Chari- 
table Institutions ; Lancashire Members of Parliament and Public Offi- 
cers ; the County and City Magistracy, and other General Information. 
8vo. Sewed. Pp. viii., 183. Manchester, Eng. : W. Hale, 52 Cross 
Street. London: James Parker & Co., 377 Strand, and Wliittaker & 
Co., Ave Maria Lane. Price, 40 cents. 

The same, for 1874. Edited by Charles Sotheran. Pp. viii., 208. 
Price, 40 cents. 

"Of the same general character as the Lichfield and other Calendars, is that of the diocese of 
Manchester, now for the first time before us. But though, as we have said, of the same gene- 
ral character, it is far beyond, and before, them in usefulness, in excellence of arrangement, in 
extent of information, and in value as a work of reference, both in and out of the diocese. Its 
editor, Mr. Charles Sotheran, is eminently qualified for the task, and seems intuitively to know 
just what is wanted in a book of the kind, and how to arrange it in the most handy, conven- 
ient, and useful manner. We have not space to go through the contents in this notice, and 
must content ourselves by saying it is the best of its kind, and that it deserves, and has a right, 
to be extensively patronized by persons of every class throughout the diocese."— 77^^ Reliqzi- 
ary {Eng.), July, 1874. 

" This Calendar, which is edited by Mr, Charles Sotheran, and published by Mr. William Hale, of 
Cross Street, is too well-known to require notice at our hands ; but we are glad to call atten- 
tion to some important additions and modifications which appeared first in last year's edition, 
and which have been continued and increased in the present number. Much technical and 
irrelevant matter has been omitted, while more space has been given to matters of general 
interest. There is, moreover, much useful information on school boards and educational mat- 
ters, the columns devoted to the latter being remodelled from information supplied by the Rev. 
P. J. Wodehouse, M.A., Diocesan Inspection of Schools." — The {Manchester) Critic, Jatiu- 
ary 24, 1874. 

"We have to hand the Manchester Diocesan Church Calendar and General Almanac, for the 
year 1874. This most useful compendium of all kinds of information concerning the Diocese no 
person inti.- rested in Church and County matters should be without. It contains, in addition to 
much other matter, a Calendar with the daily lessons ; copious information relating to the 
Church, the Universities, and the State ; a complete list of the Parishes and Clergy of the Dio- 
cese ; Colleges; Grammar Schools ; Educational Foundations and School Boards ; Diocesan 
Societies and Charitable Institutions ; Lancashire Members of Parliament, and Public Officers ; 
the County and City Magistracy, etc., etc. The present year is the fifteenth of its appearance, 
and the Editor, Mr. Charles Sotheran, seems determined that each successive year the Church 
Calendar shall be more copious and more correct. For a work of reference as to everything on 
which it professes to give information, it is not easy to conceive a more useful volume than this. 
It is published in Manchester, by W. Hale, 52 Cross Street ; and in London, by Parker and Co., 
and Whittaker and Co.; the price being one shilling." — The {Manchester) Free Lance, January 
16, 1874. 

' The Manchester Diocesan Chtirch Calendar. — The fifteenth annual edition of the Manchester 
Diocesan Church Calendar is replete with valuable official information. The comprehensive 
volume is inscribed to the Lord Bishop of Manchester, to whom the Editor (Mr. Charles Soth- 
eran) tenders his thanks for ' the sanction and assistance he has accorded to this work.' In this 
year's Calendar several important modifications have been made, and in lieu of technical and 
irrelevant matter, matters of general interest have been substituted. The Church Calendar is a 
perfect compendium of useful information, and, as a book of reference on subjects appertaining 
to Church affairs, it is invaluable. The arrangement is complete and reference is easy, the 
columns devoted to education in the alphabetical list of parishes have been remodelled. The 
almanac is printed in clear type, .ind is altogether a most useful production." — The {Manches- 
ter) Evening News, February 18, 1874.. 

' f 



"The Diocesan Calendar makes its appearance under the editorship of Mr. Sotharan, and with 
very considerable enlargements and improvements. As in 1873 certain small omissions will be 
noticed, but they are usually of irrelevant and not very useful matter, while in their place the 
editor has been able to give a quantity of information of general interest with especial regard to 
educational questions. The work now contains the usual Calendar with the holidays marked, 
the table of lessons according to the new lectionary, and the usual necessary information for the 
clergy. Following this we have elaborately compiled statistics of the Church in England, Ire- 
land, Scotland, the Colonies, India, and America, full particulars of the Universities and theo- 
logical Colleges, Educational, Missionary, and Benevolent Societies, the Houses of Lords and 
Commons, and all the usual general information which is looked for in a work of this kind. The 
second half of the book relates to the diocese of Manchester, and is most carefully compiled, the 
information being, by means of a supplementary page, brought down to the end of 1873. Even 
the names of the Oldham School Board are given in this page, though they were elected only 
on the 29th of December last. For the rest the information appears to us exceedingly full and 
clear. The account of Church work in the diocese is of special interest, showing as it does that 
Lancashire Churchmen are by no means standing still. The diocese was formed in 1848 and 
Bishop Lee consecrated one hundred and thirty churches during his episcopate. Dr. Fraser 
was consecrated on the Feast of the Annunciation, 1870, and on the 23d of April in that year conse- 
crated his first Church — the Calderbrook. Between that time and August last he consecrated 
no fewer than thirty-three churches, besides six cemeteries and additions to churchyards last 
year ; eleven new ecclesiastical districts were formed in 1873 ; four churches enlarged or re- 
stored : and there are now five Churches built, but not ready for consecration ; four in course of 
rebuilding ; three being enlarged or restored ; ten building and twenty-six proposed — a statement 
of work which few will contemplate without a sense of satisfaction, though possibly it may be 
thought in some quarters that more ought to be done by so wealthy a community as that of the 
Lancashire cotton district." — The {Manchester) Courier ^ January 23, 1874. 

'* Some important changes have been made in the compiling of the new issue of this Calendar, and 
the modifications are all of a character to make it more generally useful and popular. It has 
lost none of the features which made it acceptable as a Church Calendar, but the withdrawal of 
much technical and irrelevant matter, in place of which appears information on subjects of more 
general interest, such as the names and addresses of the magistrates, members of Parliament, 
etc., will increase its use as a popular almanac." — The (Manchester) Examiner and Times^ 
January 17, 1873. 

" The ' Manchester Diocesan Church Calendar' — published by Mr. W. Hale, Cross Street — Is this 
year distinguished by the variety and accuracy of its information on all subjects connected with 
ecclesiastical and educational affairs in the diocese of Manchester. It includes, in addition to a 
calendar with the daily lessons, a complete list of the parishes and clergy, colleges, grammar 
schools, educational foundations, school boards, charitable institutions, and of everything else 
therewith connected. Several important modifications have been made in the body of the work 
this year, with the object of ridding it of merely technical and irrelevant matter, and giving in- 
stead more particulars of general interest, such as the names and addresses of the county and 
city magistracy, members of Parliament, school boards, and so forth. The information is con- 
densed, yet full, and so arranged as to be handily got at." — Tiie (^Manchester) Evening News ^ 
February 10, 1873, 

*' The 'Manchester Diocesan Calendar' makes its appearance somewhat later than usual, but will 
be none the less welcome to our clerical readers. The present issue differs slightly from pre- 
vious ones, inasmuch as a considerable amount of technical and irrelevant matter has been got 
rid of and its place is supplied with matters of more general interest, such as the names and ad- 
dresses of the county and city magistrates, of the local members of Parliament, and of the 
school boards. In addition to the ordinary diocesan information of the Calendar there is an 
immense number ofdetails relating to the Church of England generally in England, Ireland, 
Scotland, the Colonies, and America, the latter of which is worthy of attentive study. We no- 
tice, however, one omission. In former editions of the Calendar it has been usual to give the num- 
ber of free sittings in each church in the diocese : this year the information is omitted. For the 
time it may not be a serious matter; but in view of the attacks which our ' dear Dissenting 
brethren' are incessantly making on the Church of England we cannot but regret that valuable 
information of this kind should be left to be sought for elsewhere. Otherwise, the information is 
most cornplete, and_ three items which we cite will give a fair idea of the real strength of the 
Church in this district, and of its rapid growth since Dr. Fraser was consecrated to the see. In 
the year 1872 the bishop held 54 confirmations, at which were presented 8,578 candidates— 3,291 
males and 5,287 females. Since the Bishop came amongst us in the spring of 1870 he has conse- 
crated 24 new churches — at the rate, that is to say, of about one in every six weeks. Lastly, be- 
tween the formation of the diocese in 1848 and the death of Bishop Lee 163 new district parishes 
and ecclesiastical districts were formed and sittings for 87,421 persons were provided. For the 
future the prospectis cheering. There are, we learn, six churches in the diocese built but not 
ready for consecration ; four rebuilding ; four in course of =;nlariiement or restoration ; nine in 
course of building, and twenty-five proposed. If figures like these indicate weakness on the 
part of the Church of England, and a decline of her influencft in the 'centres of intelligence,' it 
would be pleasant to learn what are the signs of strength. Possibly if the Nonconformist 
would make a little more use of such compilations as the present, the world would hear less 
about the failure of the Church of England to accomplish the work which is set before her,"— 
The Manchester Courier^ January 9, 1873. 

9 



BY THE SAR^E AUTE^OR. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley, as a Philosopher and Reformer. By Charles 
Sotheran. Illustrations. 8vo, pp. vi., 51. New York : C. P. Somerby, 
139 Eighth St., 1875. (Price I1.25.) 

" This was the subject of a paper read at the Liberal Club, August 6, by Mr. Charles Sotheran, 
of the ' Bibliopolist.' . . . The paper is a fine one, and is to be published. 

"Without a division into numbered parts, which would have greatly aided its apprehension, the 
lecture considered Shelley's love of freedom ; anticipation of the theory of evolution ; scien- 
tific scholarship ; real belief in a Supreme Intelligence ; Pantheism ; faith in the true, though 
not the theological, Jesus ; disbelief in miracles and the Biblical account of creation; appre- 
ciation of the allegorical truth hidden in all religions ; hesitancy about a future state ; love of 
virtue ; sympathy with Ireland under oppression ; advocacy of Queen Caroline ; desire to see 
Protestant and Catholic parties united in humane efforts ; defence of labor's rights ; hatred of 
capital and commerce ; devotion to free speech and rights of woman ; interest in dumb ani- 
mals ; and love for the United States." — The {AT. V.) Liberal Christian. August 21, 1875. 

" Mr. Charles Sotheran, of the ' Bibliopolist,' has written a book on the poet Shelley as a philoso- 
pher and reformer, which is to be published in a few weeks by Chas. P. Somerby. Although 
much has been written of Shelley as a poet, his life has never before been presented as that of 
a thinker and a worker for the benefit of humanity. The little volume now being printed will 
contain a sonnet on Shelley, by C. W. Frederickson, the well-known collector of Shelleyana, and 
will be embellished by a portrait and a view of his tomb at Rome." — The ATnerican Book- 
sellers" Gziide^ December^ 1875. 

" On the evening of August 6th, Mr. Charles Sotheran read an elaborate and interesting paper 
on Percy Bysshe Shelley, as Philosopher, Statesman, and Reformer." — The {Al. V.) Truth- 
Seeker^ Sept. I, 1875. 

" We have reprinted the above extract from the current October number of the ' New Era,' con- 
taining the first portion of the essay on ' Percy Bysshe Shelley, as a Philosopher and P^.eformer,' 
by our learned correspondent Mr. Charles Sotheran. This essay, which has demanded a good 
deal of attention on account of the bold tone therein, and, as our readers know, usual with the 
writer, will be published in a separate volume." — The Spiritual Scientist {Boston)., October 
14, 1875. 



Mr. Sotheran's interesting paper on Shelley." — The {N. Y.) Liberal Christian., Oct. 9, 1875 

nirers of the poet Shelley will doubtless be i 
:ady for issue ' Percy Bysshe Shelley as a PI 
■The Publishers' Weekly., Decetnber 4, 1875, 



Admirers of the poet Shelley will doubtless be interested to learn that C. P. Somerby has nearly 
ready for issue ' Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer,' by Charles Sotheran. ' 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

American Genealogy. A Paper prepared for the " American Bibliopo- 
list," and read by desire before the New York Genealogical and Bio- 
graphical Society, at the Mott Memorial Hall, New York, January 13, 
1875, by Charles Sotheran. (A few copies of the number of the " Bib- 
liopolist " containing the above essay, are still to be had from J. Sabin 
& Sons, 84 Nassau Street, New York. Price, 25 cents.) 

" The Genealogical and Biographical Society held its annual meeting last evening in the Mott 
Memorial Library. A paper was read by Charles Sotheran on the History of American Gene- 
alogy. The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: President, Edward F. De 
Lancey ; First Vice-President, Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan ; Second Vice-President, Gen. George 
S. Greene ; Corresponding Secretary, Charles B. Moore ; Recording Secretary, Martin H. Staf- 
ford ; Treasurer, Dr. Samuel S. Purple ; Librarian, Joseph S. Brown ; Registrar of Pedigrees, 
the Rev. Beverley R. Betts ; Trustees, David P. Helton, John J. Latting, and Charles B. 
Moore." — The {N. F.) Tribune., January 14, 1875. 

" ' The American Bibliopolist ' for February contains a paper on ' American Genealogy,' by Charles 
Sotheran." — r^^ {Philadelphia) Evening Telegraph., March 15, 1875. 

" There is also an admirable article by Charles Sotheran, on ' American Genealogy,' a subject he 
seems fully competent to handle. This article was originally read before the members of the 
American Genealogical and Biographical Society; and in it he playfully^ alludes to 'Boss 
Tweed '—assuming, as he had the impertinence to do during his short-lived eminence of 
iniquity, the armorial bearings of the Marquis of Tweedale— and Jay Gould, disporting the 
ancient cognizance of Jason, to wit, a ' Golden Fleece Proper.' Several other noteworthy 
articles are included which we have not space to specialize, reflecting the highest credit on 
the ' BibHopolist,' which we wish 'long and continued success.' ''—The {N. Y.) South., April 
10, 1875. 

" Mr. C. C. Dawson has published a eoo-pa^e genealogy of that name, and the magazine approves 
such research, if only to prevent men like Boss Tweed assuming armorial bearings, as he did 
those of the Marquis of Tweedale, or as Jay Gould the cognizance of J ison, —The North 
American and United States Gazette {Philadelphia)., March 16, 1875. 



TO AMIETISERS MD PfJBLlOTERS, 
The American Bibliopolist, 

A Literary Register and Repository of Notes and Queries, Shakespeariana, etc. 
ilxNNUAL SUBSCRIPTION, $1.25, INCLrSIVE OF PRE-PAID POSTAGE. SINGLE NUMBERS 25 

CENTS EACH. 

Published Bi-Montkly during the months of February^ April. June, A ugust, October and December, 



JP AN ADMIRABLE ADVERTISING MEDIUM. 

Advertisements are solicited for the " American Bibliopolist." This magazine, which has a circula- 
tion of some two or three thousand, is the only one in the United States which has successfully occupied, dur- 
ing the last six years, the place of Notes and Queries and other British Periodicals of the same genus, and 
offers ESPECIAL INDUCEMENTS as an advertising medium, not only on account of its coming into the hands of 
the book-buyer, but of its diffusion among Libraries, Reading Rooms, etc., and readers of the intellec- 
tual CLASS GENERALLY. 

Attention is particularly called to the criticisms of the press, which speak well as to the position occu- 
pied by the American Bibliopolist. It cannot be characterized as of a mere ephemeral nature, for it is used 
as a continual book of reference during the period of publication ; and at the end of the year the separate 
numbers are bound up in volumes, in which the advertisements are carefully preserved. Complete sets of the 
American Bibliopolist are now worth three times the original published price. The volume for 1 875, 
will make the seventh. 

The price of advertising is as follows : 
^ Page, - - - • - - - - $16.00 

m Half page, 9-00 

H (Quarter page, _----- 5.00 

■ - Eighth page, - - - - - - - 3.00 ^ 

^ Special arrangements are made for the insertion of separate slip pages and continuous advertisements 



CBITIQUES OF THE PRESS. 

The American Bibliopolist, .in its present improved form, every man with a literary taste will thoroughly enjoy. 
It is well edited, and has always a rich collection of bibliomaniacal items. — Louisville Courier-Journal, Dec. 26-27, '74. 

The July and August number of the American Bibliopolist is out, and contains the fourth installment of the *' Handy 
Book about Books," with much antiquarian lore and litei-ary gossip, such as an account of the origin of the names of 
States, etc.— Publishers^ Weekly, 1874. 

The American Bibliopolist is invaluable to those who wish to be kept acquainted with events of permanent interest 
'in the library world, and particularly to those who are interested in the curiosities of litei-ature.— Z\r. Y. Methodist. 

The Bibliopolist is admirably edited, I suppose by "our senior," learned in bibliography. Thank you for all that 
you sent me. — S. Austin Alhbone. ■ 

The American Bibliopolist, in addition to a great variety of interesting literary announcements, abounds with bib' 
liographical and antiquarian details, which cannot fail to gratify the curiosity of the patient book worm. — N. Y. Tribune. 

J. Sabin & Sons have brought their American Bibliopolist to a point of great interest, as a "Repository of Notes 
and Queries" ; and every lover of curious inquiries into the origin of words, customs, etc. — in short all antiquities 
of a literary character or bearing — ought to possess this ingenious and useful magsizine.— Christian Union. 

This publication, though nominally addressed to book-buyers, furnishes a large amount of curious and entertaining 
information for all lovers of literatui-e. It is not the mouthpiece of ?^y set, and its criticisms of catalogues and books 
are refreshingly independent and piquant. — Nation. 

A Register of the trogress of Literature, which enjoys a vide popularity for the spice and vinegar which season its 
pSiges.— Evening Telegram. 

The American Bibliopolist is the only real "Literary Register" issued in this country. In addition to its valuable 
listsof rare old books, and its catalogues of nevr ones, the Bibliopolist contains monthly correspondence on all sorts of 
literary subjects, andfrom all quarters. A most interesting and important feature of this work is in its department of 
"Notes and Queries,' in which curious words, old traditions, ancient customs, and other subjects in which antiquaries 
delight, are discussed bv correspondents among themselves —Sc/iooZ Journal. 

The Department entitled "Notes and Queries," of the American Bibliopolist is a repository for all sorts of out of the 
way, and at the same time interesting literary information.- College Courant. 

To a man or woman engtigfd in literary pursuits, such a work as this is simply invaluable, combining, as it does, the 
features of the London " Notes and Queries," with a complete catalogue of the works issued from the British and Ameri- 
can Fress during the month. It is printed on fine toned paper, and is just the work to gladden the heart of the book- 
lover. — Brooklyn Times. 

No Bibliopole should neglect to subscribe to this publication; its interest and value to him is almost inestimable. 
It gives notice of some of the most noticeable new books, literary gossip, some curious " notes and queries," interesting 
correspondence on a variety of topics, and some valuable articles on subjects relating to litevEture.— Philadelphia Inquirer. 

The Bibliopolist is undoubtedly the most interesting and worth preserving literary record within our knowledge. 
'—Boston Pilot. 

Sabin "s Bibliopolist contains its usti/^l literary feast of notes and queries, and some interesting correspondence, 
"-Jewish Messenger. 

J. SABIN & SONS, Publishers, 84 Nassau St., New York 
14 York St., Covent Garden, London, W. C. 



LIST OF RADICAL AND REFORM ^VORKS 

Published by CHAELES P. SOMERBY, 139 Eighth St., New York, 

r ; (4ffew doors east of Broadway). 



The Martyrdom of Man 

By WIN WOOD READE. 
121110, Clotb, 543 pp. Postpaid, $3* 



CONTENTS : 

Under the head of "War," we have: Egypt, 
The Water Harvest, The Sources of the Nile, 
Philosophy of Leisure, Agricultural Monog- 
amy, Inequality of Men, Famine the Mother 
of Astronomy, Cruelty the Nurse of Civiliza- 
tion, Trial of the Dead, the Painted Tomb, 
Children of the Desert, The Horse of War, The 
Terrible Sahara, Pharaoh Triumphant, Egyp- 
tian Country House, The Luxury Question, The- 
ology Stops the Way, Empire of Ethiopia, The 
India Trade, The Persian Shepherds, The King's 
Harem, Origin of Greek Genius, Their Religion, 
The City of the Violet Crown, The University of 
Egypt, Seraglio Intrigue, Retreat of the Ten 
Thousand, Tyranny of Athens, Alexander at 
Babylon, Two Faces Under One Hat, A G ' ek 
Voltaire, The Purple Trade, Discovery of the 
Atlantic, Introduction of the "A, B, C," The 
Colonies of Carthage, The Gardens of the Hes- 
perides. Home Rule of Rome, The' House of 
Baal, Silver Spain, The Poor Hated Old Man, 
Roman Baden Baden, Cato's Little Farm, A 
Dissolute Prig, Africa's Place in History, Civ- 
ilizing War. 

Under the head of "Religion": Ghost Wor- . 
ship. Divine Hybrids, Idolatry and Dollatry, 
Who Made God ? Nature in the Nude, The Sheik 
Abraham, Moses in Exile, The Delphi of the He- 
brews, Pope Samuel, A God-intoxicated Man, 
A Pious Brigand, By the Waters of Babylon, 
Character of Jehovah, Character Improves, 
Origin of the Devil, A Monopolized Deity, 
Bright Side of the Character of Jesus, Dark 
Side, The Miracle Doctor, Tlie Ghetto, Rome 
Sleeping, Heavenly Elusions, Episcopal Saliva, 
The Wonderful Well, The Truce of God, Achieve- 
ments of Mahomet, Negro States, The African 
Hut, Dance Ordeal, School, Philosophy of Salt, 
Bagdad of the West, Negroes in Mecca, The 
Black Prophet, Turks in Africa. 

Under the consideration of "Liberty," he 
shows us : The Ancient <Termans, The Castle an 
Academy, The Serfs, The Monks, The Crusades, 
Venice, Arab Spain, The Hill of Tears, Ortho- 
dox Geography, India, Prester John, Lisbon 
Rejoices, Majestic Crime, Slavery in London, 
The Methodists, Giants and Pigmies, Thomas 



Paine, Cotton, Neck and Neck, W. L. Garrison, 
Rebellion of the North, The Lost Cause, Future 
of Africa, Future of the Earth, Origin of Man, 
Tailed Minds. 

Li the consideration of " Intellect " he intro- 
duces : The Children of the Sun, Origin of Life, 
History of the Cell Dawn of Reason, Origin of 
Love, The Ghost Religion, Origin of Priests, 
Invention of Hell, Musical Conversation, The 
Why, The Utility of the Affections, Breeding 
Laws, Death of Sin, Origin of Chastity, Rome 
and China, The Buddhists, The Age of the Ro- 
sary, War in the Future, The Expedient of Re- 
ligion, Fallacies of the Commune, American 
Prosperity, Inventions of the Future, Theory of 
the Soul, Duties of a Creator, The Theory Ex- 
ploded, Should the Truth be Told ? Christianity 
Exposed, The Catastrophes of Progress, Moral 
Value of Hell-Fire, True Sources of Morality, 
Spurious Virtues of Theology, The True Relig- 
ion, The Last Sacrifice." 

PRESS NOTICES: 

It is really a remarkable book, in which uni- 
versal history is " boiled do\Aai " with surprising 
skill. . . The boldest, and, so far as histor- 
ical argument goes, one of the ablest, assaults 
ever made upon Christianity.— [Literary World. 

His history has a continuity, a rush, a caiTy- 
ing power, which remind us strikingly of Gib- 
bon.— [New Haven Palladium. 

The sketch of early Egyptian history, in the 
first chapter, is a masterpiece of historical wri- 
ting. He has a style that reminds us of Macau - 
lay.— [Penn Monthly. 

You turn over his pages with a fascination 
similar to that experienced in reading Washing 
ton Irving.— [Inter Ocean. 

To readers who are attracted by the Darwin- 
ian literature, this book, with its quaint declara- 
tion that "Life is bottled sunshine," may al.<=a 
be recommended.— [Pittsburgh Eve. Chronicle. 

Whoever would be jostled into attention, and 
led into unwonted channels of thought, will find 
this volume full of interest and ofteii of delight. 
—[New Covenant. 



Tyndall's Belfast Inaugural Address, 

AND THE 

Famous Articles of Prof. Tyndall and Sir Henry Thompson 

ON PRAYER. 

WITH PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PROF. TYNDALL. AND OPINIONS OP HIS SERV- 
ICES BY THE EMINENT SCIENTIST PROF. H. HELMHOLTZ. 



Postpaid, Paper, 50 cts.; Cloth, $1. 

"Prof. Tyndall has inaugurated a 
new era in scientific development, 
and has drawn the sword in a battle 
whose clash of arms will presently 
resound through the civilized world. 

Prof. Tyndall Crosses the Ru- 
bicon. — It is the opening address of 



Inaugural and Portrait, Paper, 25 cts. 
the President of the most important 
convention of scientific men in the 
world. Every line of it breathes 

thought, power, eloquence It is 

in many respects one of the most ex- 
traordinary utterances of our time. — 
N. T. Tribune. 



ANCIENT FAITHS EMBODIED IN ANCIENT NAMES; 



OR AN ATTEMPT TO TRACE THE 



RELIGIOUS BELIEF, SACRED RITES, AND HOLY EMBLEMS 

of Certain Nations, by an interpretation of the Names given to Children by Priestly Authority, or 
Assumed by Prophets, Kings, or Hierarchs. By Thomas Inman, M.D., late President of the 
Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, etc. Two vols., 1914 pp., 8vo. Several hundred 
Illustrations. Sent by express (expressa^e unpaid), $20.00. 

" To those who thirst after loiowledge, and are not deterred from seeking it by the fear of 
imaginary dangers, tlii? volume is inscribed, with great respect, by the author." 



Ralical aM Reform PillGatloiis liy C. P. SoMrly, 139 8tli St., N. Y. 

Nathaniel Vaughan: 

Priest and Man. 

A NOVEL. 

By FBEDERIKA MAODONALD, 

Author of the "Iliad of the East," etc., etc. 
3 vols, in 1, Ez. Clo., Black and Gold Side Stamp. 12mo, 404 pp. Postpaid, $1.50. 

not marred by the grace and humor 
with which its lighter passages are 
told. . . . A more vigorous presentment 
of the mischievous nature of modern 
Christianity, in its most honest and 
consistent form, need not be desired. 
... .It is a really artistic composition, ^ 
with a sound moral expressed, though 
not obtruded, on the canvas. — West- 
minster Review. 

" Let nothing human be indifferent 
to you. Live in the world as of it ; 
do not aspire beyond, but for and 
through and by it. Carry men on in 
your manhood nearer to truth, to 
justice, to nobility, and the joy which 
is their fruit. Repress no faculty, 
withhold no gift — spend all your 
treasure. Share thus in creation ; 
and in the impulse you shall have giv- 
en toward more full and perfect life 
be content to see your immortal- 
ity." — Extract. 



..An original work of absorb- 
ing interest, of cultured Rationalism, 
and high-toned morality. It is a book 
for the heart as well as the intellect ; 
it is an oasis in the desert of common 
religious literature. — Sara A. Under- 
wood, in Boston Investigator. 

" It is the work of one who has con- 
sidered well the false and destructive 
influence of the "other-world" view 
of human life, and the mischief 
which fanatical priests are doing in 
society — who has learned that the 
service of men in this world is more 
rational and helpful than any zeal for 
saving their souls in another world. " 
An independent and respectable 
study of character in the law of cir- 
cumstance such as even George Eliot 
might not have been ashamed to own. 
. . .A very bold and trenchant attack 
on Orthodoxy, and the earnestness 
with which it is made throughout is 



THE SAFEST OREED, 

And Twelve Other Recent Discourses of Reason. 

Second Ed., 12mo, Cloth, Beveled, Black Side Stamp, 238 pp. Postpaid, 1.50. 

Contents. — Safest Creed, Eadical Belief, Kadical's Root, Joy of a Free Faith, Living Faith, 
Gospel of To-Day, Gospel of Character, Scientific Aspect of Prayer, Naked Truth, Dying and 
Living God, Infernal and Celestial Love, Lnmortahties of Man, Victory Over Death. 

"The publisher has done a good The whole appearance of the book 

thing to bring them together in this deserves the warmest approbation, 

more permanent form. All the work ' To cherish no illusion ' might be 

is entirely new and very handsome, the text of every one of them." 



THE ANTIQUITY OF CHRISTIANITY. 

By John Albeeger. Postpaid, Paper, 35 cts. ; Cloth, 75 cts. 



"If the fathers of the Primitive 
Church were unable accurately to de- 
fine Christianity, what modern genius 
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presumption ? If the earliest histori- 
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theologians, controversialists and 
writers that ornament the Primitive 
Church could distinguish no essen- 
tial difference between Christianity 
and Paganism, how vain are the at- 
tempts of modern theologians, com- 
mentators and Biblical critics to 
show the contrary ! In fine, if those 
who lived so near the age of the 
Apostles as almost to have heard 
their retiring footsteps — who were 



born in their vicinity, spoke their 
language, visited the schools which 
they had planted, conversed with 
those with whom they had conversed, 
and had access to archives, records 
and libraries which have since per- 
ished — were incompetent to establish 
an authoritative definition of Chris- 
tianity, to what credit are entitled 
the attempts of modern ecclesiastics, 
deprived of these advantages, to fur- 
nish a more accurate definition ? 
Surely, in showing that those from 
whom they received their creed were 
dupes of error, they invalidate the 
authority, if they do not disprove 
the truth of Christianity itself." — Ext. 



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Railical anil Refora Pntlication s liy C. P. Sofflerty, 139 8tli St., N. Y, 
A FEW W(M)S ABOUT "the DEVIL, 

And Other Biographical Sketches and Essays. 

Portrait, 2ol Ed., 12mo. Ez. Cloth, Gold Side Stamp, 260 pp. Postpaid, $1.50. 

thoughts which can not fail to be of 
use in their professional studies. — 



PRESS NOTICES. 

In a handsome volume before us 
Charles Bradlaugh has " A Few 
Words" to say "About the Devil." 
Mr. Bradlaugh has a right to his 
Few Words, and the Devil will, we 
presume, at no very distant day, have 
a "few words to say to Mr. Brad- 
laugh, and will doubtless get the best 
of the argument. — CJmago Interior. 

His atheism is, after all, very much 
akin to the views put forth by Hux- 
ley and Tyndall and by Prof. John 
W. Draper. — Daily O-raphic. 

His position herein is defined and 
defended in a spirit of reverence for 
the truth. — Chicago Eve. Journal. 

We should insist, were we in any 
way connected with the government 
of Theological schools, on the pe- 
rusal of this work by the youth fit- 
ting under our charge for the duties 
and responsibilities of the pulpit. 
They will find Mr. Bradlaugh no 
common man, and they will be in- 
troduced by him to persons and 



New Haven Palladmm. 

Displays much learning and re- 
search. — Tlie Democrat. 

EXTRACTS. 

" Give up blind adhesion to creeds 
and priests; strive to think, and fol- 
low out in action the result of your 
thoughts. Each mental struggle is 
an enlargement of your mind, an ad- 
dition to your brain-power, an in- 
crease of your soul — the only soul 
you have." 

"It is said by many a pious tongue 
that God helps the poor ; the wretch- 
edness of some of their hovel houses, 
found, alas, too often, in the suburbs 
of our wealthiest cities, grimy, black, 
squalid and miserable ; the thread- 
bare raggedness of their garments ; 
the unwholesomeness of the food they 
eat; the poisoned air they breathe in 
their narrow wynds and filthy alleys 
— all these tell how much God helps 
the poor ! " 



Tlte Essence of Relig-ion* God the 

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.... My aim has been to prove 
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crouches are creatures of his own 
limited, ignorant, uncultured, and 
timorous mind ; to prove that in spe- 
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against himself as a separate super- 
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Essence of Cliristianity. By L FeiT- 
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SonuilProbiemsTlByTosEPH "Peck 
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" Drum Taps" is the most original 
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Radical and Reform Filications liy C. P. Somerliy, 139 8tli St., N. Y. 
ISSUES~0F"THETGE; 

Or, Consequences Involved in Modern Thought. 

By HENRY 0. PEDDER. 
12mo, Extra Cloth, Beveled, Gold Back, and Side Stamp. Postpaid, $1.50. 



The author of this volume has evi- 
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the finer spirits of the age, until his 
mind has become imbued with the 
fragrance of their thought. He has 
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and sound aspirations. — New Ym^k 
Tribune. 

He has brought the fruits of a large 
culture and extensive reading, and a 
mind unusually calm and thoughtful, 
to bear upon the questions which are 
agitating the hour. — JSf. Y. World. 



Mr. Pedder is not one of those rad- 
icals who rail at the Christian relig- 
ion. Indeed, his rationalism has 
throughout a sweet " reasonable- 
ness," and is not the fierce dogma- 
tism of those positive souls who 
would, with Voltairean directness, 
"crush the infamous one." — Christum 
Register (Boston). 

A truly able discussion of the sub- 
jects which most vitally concern the 
higher nature and larger life of man. 
— Chica.go Evening Journal. 



inON-CLAD AND MANUA SERIES. 



IRON-CLAD SERIES. 

No. Cts. 

1 Atonement. Charles Bradlaugh, 5 

2 Secular Responsibility. G. J. Holyoake, 5 

3 Christianity and Materialism Contrasted. 

Underwood, 15 

4 Influence of Christianity on Civilization. 

Underwood, 25 

5 Gleanings from Parker Frothingham, 

Voysey, and others. Winans, 10 

6 Miscellaneous "Index" Tracts, 10 
T Buddhist Nihilism. Prof. Max Mueller, 10 

8 Religion of Inhumanity. F. Harrison, 20 

9 Relation of Witchcraft to Religion. Lyall, 15 

10 Epidemic Delusions. Marvin. Cloth, 50 

11 Philosophy of Spiritualism. Marvin, 50 

12 Tyndall's Belfast Inaugural, and Portrait, 25 

13 Essay on Miracles, David Hume, 10 

14 Land Question. Charles Bradlaugh, 5 

15 Were Adam and Eve our First Parents ? 

Charles Bradlaugh, 5 

16 Why ^0 Men Starve ? Chas. Bradlaugh 5 

17 Logic of Life, Deduced from the Principle of 

Freethought. George J. Holyoake, 10 

18 A Plea for Atheism. Chas. Bradlaugh, 10 

19 Large or Small Families ? A, Holyoake, 5 

20 Superstition Displayed, with a Letter of 

Wm. Pitt. Austin Holyoake, 5 

21 Defense of Secular Principles. C, Watts, 5 

22 Is the Bible Reliable ? Charles Watts, 5 

23 The Christian Deity. Charles Watts, 5 

24 Moral Value of the Bible. Chas. Watts, 5 

25 Free Thought and Mod. Progress. Watts, 5 

26 Christianity : Its Nature, and Influence on 

Civilization. Charles Watts, 5 

2T Essays Before Free Reli^j. Ass'n. 18T3, 35 

28 Thoughts on Atheism. Austin<tIolyoake, 5 

29 Is there a Moral Governor of the Uni- 

verse ? Austin Holyoake, 5 

30 Philosophy of Secularism. Chas. Watts, 5 

All postpaid. For $2 we will send to one 



No. Cts. 

31 Has Man a Soul ? Charles Bradlaugh, 5 

38 Is there a God ? Charles Bradlaugh, 5 

39 Labor's Prayer. Charles Bradlaiigh, 5 

40 Poverty : Its Cause and Cure. M. G. H. , 10 

41 Miscellaneous Sermons. Frothingham, 10 

42 Science and Bible Antagonistic, Watts, 10 

43 Christian Scheme of Redemption. Watts, 5 

44 Logic of Death ; or. Why Should the Atheist 

Fear to Die. George J. Holyoake, 10 

45 Character of Christ. Charles Watts, 5^ 

46 Atheism and the Gloucester Execution. 

Charles Watts, 6 
4T Poverty : Its effects on the Political Con- 
dition of the People. Bradlaugh, 5 

MANNA SERIES. 

1 Original Manna for " God's chosen," 5 

2 B. F. Underwood's Prayer, per dozen, 10' 

3 New Life of David. Chas. Bradlaugh, 5 

4 Why I was Excommunicated. Barnard, 20 

5 200 Questions Without Answers^ 5 

6 Dialogue between a Christian Missionary 

and a Chinese Mandarin, 10 

7 Queries Submitted to the Bench of Bish- 

ops by a Weak but Zealous Christian. 10 

8 Search After Heaven and Hell. A. Holyoake, 5 

9 New Life of Jonah. Chas. Bradlaugh, 5 

10 A Few Words about the Devil, " 5 

11 New Life of Jacob, " 5 

12 Daniel, the Dreamer. Austin Holyoake, 10 

13 Specimen of the Bible : Esther, " 10 

14 Acts of the Apostles : A Farce, " 10 

15 Ludicrous Aspects of Christianity, " 10 

16 Twelve Apostles. Charles Bradlaugh, 5 

17 Who Was Jesus Christ ? " 5 

18 What Did Jesus Teach ? " 5 

19 New Life of Abraham, " 5 

20 New Life of Moses. " 5 

21 A Secular Prayer. A. Holyoake. Per doz. 10 
address $2.25 worth, and $6 worth for |5. 



Philosopliy of Spiritualism, and the 

Pathology and Treatment of Mediomanla. 
By F. R. Marvin, M.D., Professor of Psjasho- 
logical Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence in 
New York Free Medical College for Women. 
Postpaid, Cloth, $1. 

There is no way of getting rid of Infidelity till 
some way is devised of abolishing the doctors. 
And here is another point: he says the special 
indulgence in religious exercises undermines the 

fabric of morality So the poor clergy and the 

religious get bethwacked on every hand ! Is 

there no punishment that can be properly inflict- 
ed on a physician who boldly assails theology 
and its devotees in this relentless manner? — 
[Daily Graphic. 



The Cbildbood of the World. A 

Simple Account of Man in Early Times. By 
Edward Clodd, F.R.A.S. Postpaid, Paper, 
50 cts.; Cloth, 75 cts. 



lB»y'30 



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Criticism. By Frederic Harrison. Post- 
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ne w-fan gle d Calvinism." 

Secular Respoiisibility. By Geo. J. 

Holyoake. Postpaid, 5 cts. 

" I wish to place on record my conviction that 
belief cannot now be defended by reticence any 
more than by railing, or by any privileges and 
assumption." — Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone . 

Relig^ious Positivism. A Brief Expo- 
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of Life propounded by Auguste Comte. "Love 
our Principle, Order our Basis, Progress our 
End." By H. Ed ger. Postpaid, Paper, 50c. 

iEpidemic Delusions. By Frederic R. 

Marvin, Postpaid, Limp Cloth,^50 cents. 
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